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by pjtr
2624 days ago
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"there is a huge amount of text, more than 100 words" "PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers" Would technical papers have fewer than 100 words? If people can't be bothered to read 13 slides, what would they do with a technical paper? If people can't be bothered to make their message clear in slides, how would they create a readable technical paper? I don't like presentations that consist of "monotonously reading [bullets] as we read along" either. But what does PowerPoint have to do with this? I've seen such presentations done with trendy web tools instead; they don't change anything. I've also read full technical papers written in LaTeX that didn't manage to get their point through the unclear writing (and vaguely misused technical jargon buzzwords). |
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Slides are not the same as or replacements for technical papers. Even by comparing them, you're making the same mistake as these engineers did. Compared to a paper, the downsides of a presentation are that they are typically constrained to just 30-60 minutes, in front of a group of people who may be checking their phones and only be half-engaged. Also, by its very nature, the presenter is speaking, so it's difficult to simultaneously read the slides while listen to the presenter.
The upside of a presentation however, is that you can give it to many people at once, and solicit feedback in real-time.
Accordingly, presentations like this need to be far tighter than technical papers. There needs to be much more work invested in prioritizing the issues that you discuss, they should take advantage of the advantages of the form (e.g., utilizing the skills of the audience), and minimize the disadvantages (short time-frame, and no monopoly on attention).
As a starter, you should never put a single word on a slide that you do not say out-loud. There's nothing worse than putting a block of text on a screen and talking about it. The astute audience members will listen to you while reading the text, and in the process not internalizing either. Most audience members will just have their eyes glaze over and then check their phones.
Sadly, engineers are often taught how to write technical papers, but not how to give effective technical presentations.