[wtallis]

Write your talk first, then decide what graphics need to accompany it. PowerPoint tempts you to do it the other way around. Also, give the audience a short handout (eg. single page double-sided) that has a summary in prose rather than bullets and includes key graphics as needed. Never print a slide deck as a handout.

It's okay to make an outline in the early stages of preparing your talk, but you can't just paginate and decorate that outline and call it a presentation. The audience should never see that outline, since it's supposed to just be an organizational tool for you to prepare the real presentation.

Once you've got your presentation actually planned and you've collected the materials you want to project onto the big screen, then PowerPoint might be a reasonable choice for displaying them, but actually using the PowerPoint program should be one of the last and shortest steps. Or you might find that everything that needs to be explained visually can fit on your handout.