Public Speaking Skills For Dummies

Chapter 7

Using Visual Aids

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using slide shows to augment your speech

Showing pictures and bullet points

Knowing when — and when not — to use audio and video

Venturing into other visual aids

Good old-fashioned Microsoft PowerPoint (https://products.office.com/en-us/powerpoint) has been joined by other kinds of presentation software options. You can try Prezi (www.prezi.com), Google Slides (https://gsuite.google.com/products/slides/), LibreOffice Impress (www.libreoffice.org), and Apache OpenOffice Impress (www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html) for starters. Most people probably still think of slide presentations as all being “PowerPoint.” It’s sort of the Kleenex or Xerox of its field.

But the variety of options doesn’t change the age-old question of presentations: Do you need a visual aid? Generally, the thinking goes like this: Some people feel that just standing in front of an audience and delivering their message is not enough. They need something more to entice and captivate the audience.

Sometimes that’s true. It’s hard to describe a picture. Plus it’s worth ...