Winning The Room

SECTION 3Developing: Wording and Text

Although any data‐driven presentation will require the development of a variety of figures and charts (we'll talk about developing graphics in later sections), the text that you place on your slides and how that text is worded are critically important to audience comprehension. You must get your points across clearly and succinctly while using terms and phrasing that your (often nontechnical) audience can understand. Here are some of the concepts discussed in this section:

• Minimize the number of words on your slides.
• Aggressively avoid technical terms and phrases.
• Ensure everything on your slides can be easily seen by the audience.
• Do not rely on automated spelling and grammar checks.
• Clearly define terms and use those terms consistently.

Perhaps the simplest rule of thumb is to always read the content you develop through the lens of the intended audience. That audience will be largely unfamiliar with the terms and lingo that you and your technical peers use, so make sure you're not displaying text that may as well be a foreign language to them. If the person in your organization who is least knowledgeable about your topic would be able to read and understand your points, then you are on the right path.

Tip 30: Minimize the Number of Words on Your Slides

Tip 3 discussed keeping the audience focused on your story and not your slides, and Tip 6 discussed keeping slides short and to the point. To achieve those goals, you must minimize ...