Key questions:
Is the focus of the presentation clear from the headings of the slides?
Do the words in the Notes pages balance words with slide contents?
Will the slides look interesting to the audience?
Write a story to support your ideas for the presentation - with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Use the template to plan and create the sections of the presentations.
Act I sets up the key story elements. Stories include a setting, a main character, a conflict and a desired outcome (details on scripts here).
Act II picks up on the conflict from Act I and drives the story forward with more detail and events concerning the main character.
Act III ends the story with a climax and a decision that the main character must face to bring about a resolution of the conflict.
Rules for Writing:
Use these 'scenes' to develop the story:
Appeal to emotions, find the things that will get to the heart of the audience and connect with them.
Tips
This is where the argument in favour of the solution described in Act I is expanded with a number of reasons given. Focus on information that explains the action, exclude everything else (not a balanced argument but appropriate in the circumstances).
Three main reasons are given for accepting the solution, which make up the first three scenes of Act II. You have to think of what these reasons are. Three is considered a 'magic number' in arguments, neither too little nor too much but just enough. This is so the audience have enough reasons to accept the proposal but not so many that they are overwhelmed. Some solutions may call for four reasons, which is OK if you really must... The subdivision of the three reasons into three sub-reasons and the further subdivision of these can make for 27 points altogether, so there is plenty to work on.
This arrangement of points is called a logic tree, each branch has three sub-branches and each of those has three sub-sub-branches. Do not worry if you do not always have three points at the lower levels, sometimes it is not possible to find them.
Complete the cells in the template to the level that you require in your presentation.
After the three points of the argument in Act II it is time to restate the 'balance' point from Act I and remind the audience of the situation you want to achieve and to re-establish the emotional connection with the audience. This stage is called the 'Turning Point' as it leads to Act III and the conclusion and resolution.
The audience will resolve the problem outlined in the presentation by deciding whether or not to accept the proposed method of resolution. The scenes are as follows:
The 'logic tree' structure of Act II provides three alternative lengths for a presentation - 5, 15 or 45 minutes. Tailor your outline according to what your presentation will require. Each point in the outline will convert to a slide, which will be on screen for around a minute so you can quickly estimate the total length of the presentation.
Use Ctrl-A to select all the text and Ctrl-C to copy it. Create a new Word document and choose Paste Special/Unformatted Text to paste the text only. Delete the headings so your are left with only the points you typed in yourself, each one on a separate line with a Return character at the end. Now choose File/Send To and select MS Office PowerPoint. This will create a separate slide in PowerPoint for each line typed.
Choose View/Master/Slide Master and click in the title box - 'Click to edit Master title slide'. Set up the font you want for the presentation and the font size. Select Format/Placeholder/Text Box, set the Text Anchor Point to 'Top' and make sure 'Word wrap text in Autoshape option is ticked. Delete the three boxes at the bottom of the slide for date, footer and number. Click on the Object area and extend it. Select the text items inside the box and delete them and click on the Bullets icon to remove them. Click the Close Master View button on the floating toolbar.
Choose Edit/Select All (Ctrl-A), choose Format/Slide Layout and click on Title and Content (this appears in the hint boxes as you move the mouse over the outline pages). Now all the slides should have the same format. The aim is to add images to the all the slides in the empty placeholder created.
Edit the headlines of each slide in Normal View using the Outline option from the tabs in the left panel.
Use Slide Sorter view to add slides in desired locations. You will need an opening slide - use the title from the concluding (climax) slide in Act 3, or something like it, to make the title slide point towards the conclusion.
Add a slide at the end for closing credits.
Add slides to mark out the main parts (Acts) of the presentation. Add a new slide at the end and format it as a storyboard marker. Use the blank layout, set the text to large and add single text boxes for the headings like 'Act I, scene 2', etc (don't write them in yet). Change the background colour so the slides stand out. Select the slide and press Ctrl-D to duplicate it four times. Add labels for Act I, Act II Scene 1, Act II Scene 2, Act II Scene 3 and Act III. Drag the slides to the appropriate positions in the presentation. Right click these slides and choose 'Hide slide' so they don't appear in the presentation.
You can write the details of your script into the notes section of the slides. Use View/Master/Notes Master to set up the notes pages. Select any slide and choose View/Notes. Write out what you plan to say about the slide in the box. Use complete sentences so you can distribute the notes at the end of the presentation.
Keep in mind the presentation as a narrative rather than as individual slides - the slides should be seen as 'frames' in a movie. Keep the amount of information in each slide the same so that the slides play evenly. Tie acts and scenes together by whatever means you can such as images, text cues or animations like screen transitions.
Design around the headlines. The headlines provide the narrative of the presentation, they can be read as a story across the slides. Use Notes View to make sure that there is a balance on every slide between headline, graphic image and notes. The images should be related to the headlines and notes.
Tips
The aim is to add images to every slide so that the audience sees a combination of headlines and pictures that tell the story of the presentation. The images should stimulate the imagination of the audience and cause them to respond to your presentation. Images may be photographs or symbols that represent the theme of the slide, something that the audience focuses on and ties them into the presentation.
If you use full-size photographs on a slide you may need to put a semi-transparent background between the headline and the image so that the text is not lost in the image. To do this add a rectangle (auto-shape) over the text and then format it with a colour and a transparency value, or choose Fill Effects/Gradient and give the rectangle a gradual change from opaque to transparent as the image requires.
You can add animated words or phrases that fade in and out over the images, timed carefully to your speech. Add these as text boxes and use Custom Animation to set the timings of the fade-in and fade-out - use Modify Fade.
Copy three slides out of the presentation into an empty file for experiments in design - font and colours. Duplicate the slides so there are three sets and compare different designs side by side.
Use simple charts where appropriate to illustrate figures and trends. You might put a chart across more than one slide showing changes - one column, two columns, three columns, and so on.