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University presentation: The 8 most common mistakes and how to avoid them!

It’s not unknown for the grade you get in a degree program to hinge on a single paper or presentation. This article aims to cover common mistakes (especially when you’re just starting out), and show you how to avoid them.

We want to reassure you that everyone can create a good university presentation, winning over both your fellow students and your professor!

From School to University

Many young people are inadequately prepared for creating and giving individual presentations during their school years. Presentations are generally given in groups, and students take turns presenting.

This means that students who’ve come from small-class environments are often hammered by stage fright when they suddenly have to give a university presentation alone and in front of a larger audience. 

Add to this the fact that it’s rare to be taught how to use PowerPoint efficiently in school, and it’s obvious that many will have difficulty creating and giving an excellent university presentation. This leads to unnecessary stress. To avoid this, just read on!

Common Errors When Presenting

It’s so important to realize that a presentation is more than just a set of slides . The way those slides are presented is also an essential part of creating a good university presentation .

Many students, particularly at the beginning of their studies, focus narrowly on the content of the slides, failing to understand that they’re just one aspect of a presentation.

One of the basics for giving a good presentation – one that both your professor and your fellow students can actually enjoy – is being able to speak fluently and confidently . This only comes naturally to a lucky few, though – the rest of us need to put in a lot of preparation, especially at the start of our studies. Don’t panic, though – we’ll show you just what to do, and what mistakes to avoid!

Mistake #1: Failure to practise

Presenting topics needs to be practised ! Most students spend hours perfecting the content of their university presentation, but give little or no thought to how they’re going to deliver it. If you rehearse properly, you can avoid unnecessary slip-ups and hangs while presenting, and learn how to get the timing right (not rushing, but not dragging). It’s no good going to all the trouble of creating a great presentation (or product!) if you can’t sell it as well!

Just reading your presentation out loud two or three times before you have to get up and speak in public will hugely reduce the chances of slipping up. (You also often notice more mistakes in the content when you speak than when you read, which you can then fix.) If you have a time limit to stick to, you’ll also be able to see if you need to shorten (or lengthen) your presentation.

If you have problems delivering your presentation smoothly, PowerPoint Presenter View can be really helpful. Find out how to use Speaker View to make your presentation easier here .

Do be aware, though, that depending on where you are presenting, you may not necessarily have a clear view of your laptop. Many college seminar rooms don’t have a lecture podium. Without your laptop directly in front of you, it’s difficult to use Speaker View.

Mistake #2: Making your slides the entire presentation

A really easy error to make is to put everything – all the relevant and interesting information you want to get across – on your slides. This means that your audience can quickly scan the info and then mentally switch off – you’re not adding any value.

To avoid this, while you’re preparing the presentation, think which parts you need to show on your slides, and which you can deliver while speaking , as part of the presentation. Core information and important figures should obviously be on the slides as well as in your talk, but otherwise your slides should underscore what you’re saying, rather than just repeating it.

Slides which include pictures or diagrams , without a lot of text, are particularly good for this. In general, it’s best to restrict what goes on your slides to core points and keywords , rather than writing in complete sentences.

Mistake #3: Not interacting with the audience

Many students focus so hard on the content of their university presentation that they forget the importance of actually interacting with the audience . This results in never-ending monologues and a bored audience!

Introducing interactive elements not only keeps your audience interested, but can get you kudos from your professor. Videos or interactive graphics, for example, help to lighten up the presentation, and questions encourage your fellow students to actively participate.

We’ve gone into how to do this well here and here .

Once you’ve finished speaking, a question-and-answer session is great for involving your audience. We would recommend, though, that you think this through properly and provide a structure for the discussion. Asking questions about personal experiences with the topic can help, for example – otherwise no one may speak up!

For more helpful tips on how to engage your audience and keep their attention, take a look here .

Mistake #4: Missing eye contact

Eye contact is a really important part of giving a good presentation. It signals that you’re actually interested in the audience and are addressing them directly.

However, it’s quite normal to get overtaken by nerves, especially as a freshman, meaning you stare fixedly at your slides or index cards, avoiding looking at your audience. Unfortunately, this can come across not only as being unsure of your subject, but as not actually caring what your audience thinks.

At the beginning of your university presentation, before starting to speak, pick someone in the audience who seems interested in the talk ( or just a friend!). Whenever you start to feel nervous, look at that person. Don’t just keep your focus there, though; let your gaze wander around the room.

Try dividing the audience mentally into four sections and letting your gaze rest on each section for about five seconds. This way, each section of the audience feels like they’re being directly addressed and paid attention to. For more tips and tricks on eye contact and body language, take a look at our blog here .

Mistake #5: Too much content and too long a presentation

Many students are afraid of missing out important content, so running the risk of crowding too much information into their presentation . Their presentations end up being overlong, often running over the time limit and boring the audience.

Less is more when it comes to presentations . Concentrate on the essentials and don’t get lost in the details. As we said above, a few test runs are absolutely necessary to find out how long your university presentation will actually take. You can then make any alterations needed, and feel confident about presenting it. 

Mistake #6: Overloaded slides

Even though it’s a great idea to add some eye-catching effects, the same rule applies here: less is more . If your slides are too cluttered, your audience might get distracted, lose track, or switch off, rather than focus on your presentation.

The text on your slides should be limited to bullet points and keywords, as these are easier for your audience to digest. Choose a consistent color scheme and font and stick with it on all your slides. Too much color and changing fonts will distract your audience.

To learn how to get the most out of your PowerPoint presentation with fonts and colors, check out our blog here .

Using a master slide can be really helpful, too – it helps keep your layout neat and consistent. We go through how to create and properly use a master slide in this post.

Mistake #7: Getting caught out by the technical stuff

Technical problems have a nasty habit of cropping up just at the worst possible moment whatever you’re wanting to do, and giving a presentation is no exception! You can do your best to avoid them by doing a test run on site , if possible (or at least somewhere that’s not your own room, if not).

This means you can make sure you have everything you need sorted for your actual presentation, and know how the various pieces of equipment work.

It’s also a really good idea to have a plan B up your sleeve. Copy your presentation onto a spare USB stick, and you can use it on another laptop in case of emergency! Watch out for which version of PowerPoint is installed though, particularly with university laptops!

Different versions can cause headings or tables to shift and effects to disappear. You can get around this by saving your presentation as a PDF as well. This guarantees that your slides will look the same, but means any PowerPoint effects will be lost.

If you have time, do a test run on your alternative, so you can check if you need to make any adjustments.

Mistake #8: Poorly designed handouts

Extra tip: a handout can be the icing on the cake of a good presentation! To find out how to create a good handout and add that extra value, check out our blog here .

Also, check to see if your college provides students with design templates and style guides for presentations. This means you know that your slides will meet the requirements, and can save yourself some work!

To sum up: Practise makes perfect!

Even if just the thought of giving your first university presentation is enough to send you into a flat spin, it doesn’t automatically mean that your presentation has to be a disaster! Armed with the above tips, you’ll be really well prepared to give an excellent university presentation, avoiding boring either fellow students or your professor! Good luck!

If you have any questions about university presentations, or PowerPoint in general, please do get in touch with us at [email protected] . We’re always more than happy to help!

Why not take a look at our store , too? . We’ve loads of great-looking templates which could help you ace your university presentation!

You might also be interested in the following articles:

• 10 types of PowerPoint slides
• Preparing PowerPoint Presentations: 11 tips
• Insert PowerPoint Notes

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Why universities should get rid of PowerPoint and why they won’t

Lecturer in Computer Science, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

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Paul Ralph has received funding from Google for research on creativity.

University of Auckland provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Do you really believe that watching a lecturer read hundreds of PowerPoint slides is making you smarter?

I asked this of a class of 105 computer science and software engineering students last semester.

An article in The Conversation recently argued universities should ban PowerPoint because it makes students stupid and professors boring. I agree entirely. However, most universities will ignore this good advice because rather than measuring success by how much their students learn, universities measure success with student satisfaction surveys, among other things .

What is so wrong with PowerPoint?

Overreliance on slides has contributed to the absurd belief that expecting and requiring students to read books, attend classes, take notes and do homework is unreasonable.

Courses designed around slides therefore propagate the myth that students can become skilled and knowledgeable without working through dozens of books, hundreds of articles and thousands of problems.

A review of research on PowerPoint found that while students liked PowerPoint better than overhead transparencies, PowerPoint did not increase learning or grades. Liking something doesn’t make it effective, and there’s nothing to suggest transparencies are especially effective learning tools either.

Research comparing teaching based on slides against other methods such as problem-based learning - where students develop knowledge and skills by confronting realistic, challenging problems - predominantly supports alternative methods.

PowerPoint slides are toxic to education for three main reasons:

Slides discourage complex thinking . Slides encourage instructors to present complex topics using bullet points, slogans, abstract figures and oversimplified tables with minimal evidence. They discourage deep analysis of complex, ambiguous situations because it is nearly impossible to present a complex, ambiguous situation on a slide. This gives students the illusion of clarity and understanding.

Reading evaluations from students has convinced me that when most courses are based on slides, students come to think of a course as a set of slides. Good teachers who present realistic complexity and ambiguity are criticised for being unclear. Teachers who eschew bullet points for graphical slides are criticised for not providing proper notes.

Slides discourage reasonable expectations. When I used PowerPoint, students expected the slides to contain every detail necessary for projects, tests and assignments. Why would anyone waste time reading a book or going to a class when they can get an A by perusing a slide deck at home in their pyjamas?

Measuring the wrong things

If slide shows are so bad, why are they so popular?

Universities measure student satisfaction but they do not measure learning. Since organisations focus on what they measure and students like PowerPoint, it stays, regardless of its educational effectiveness.

Hospitals measure morbidity and mortality. Corporations measure revenue and profit. Governments measure unemployment and gross domestic product. Even this website measures readership, broken down by article and author. But universities don’t measure learning.

Exams, term papers and group projects ostensibly measure knowledge or ability. Learning is the change in knowledge and skills and therefore must be measured over time.

When we do attempt to measure learning, the results are not pretty. US researchers found that a third of American undergraduates demonstrated no significant improvement in learning over their four-year degree programs. They tested students in the beginning, middle and end of their degrees using the Collegiate Learning Assessment , an instrument that tests skills any degree should improve –  analytic reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving and writing.

Any university can deploy similar testing to measure student learning. Doing so would facilitate rigorous evaluations of different teaching methods. We would be able to quantify the relationship between PowerPoint use and learning. We would be able to investigate dozens of learning correlates and eventually establish what works and what doesn’t.

Unfortunately, many key drivers of learning appear to reduce student satisfaction and vice versa. As long as universities continue to measure satisfaction but not learning, the downward spiral of lower expectations, less hard work and less learning will continue.

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Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

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Giving presentations

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Useful links for giving presentations

• Presentations (online) A Study Advice guide to giving online presentations
• Study Advice Helping students to achieve study success with guides, video tutorials, seminars and one-to-one advice sessions.
• Presentation skills A Prezi on what to consider when planning and delivering a presentation from the University of East Anglia.
• Group work LibGuide Expert guidance on successful group work at university.
• Presentation skills for quivering wrecks by Bob Etherington Ebook (available to University of Reading members only). Aimed at business presenters, but good advice for all.

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• Last Updated: Sep 25, 2023 10:01 AM
• URL: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/presentations

7 PowerPoint mistakes that are killing your presentation

By Paul Moss

Join 100k+ subscribers on our YouTube channel and enjoy highly engaging lessons packed full of best practices.

A few careless powerpoint mistakes can dramatically impact both the effectiveness and professionalism of your presentation..

Over the course of my career in consulting and strategy (and as a PowerPoint instructor for those industries), I’ve seen a lot of slides – great slides, terrible slides, and everything in-between. And what I’ve come to learn is that there’s a handful of common PowerPoint mistakes that many people don’t realize are hurting their presentation.

In this post I’m going to talk about the mistakes I see most often. I’ll give some basic examples of each mistake, explain why it hurts the presentation, and show you what you should be doing instead.

For the list, I’ll mostly be focusing on corporate style presentations, like what you’re likely to see day to day in the business world, but many of the lessons can be applied to other types of presentations as well.

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Table of Contents

1. Complicated Visualizations

Your job as a slide creator is to make it as easy as possible for the audience to understand your message, and unnecessarily complicated visuals don’t help you do that. Instead, they just confuse the audience. 

In this slide from Muckerlab there is a simple sales funnel on the left, with various sales channels on the right. With enough time I can figure out the message, but it’s a bit challenging for my brain to map sales channels to the various stages of the funnel.

“Ecommerce & Digital Marketing” Muckerlab, 2014

You might think that your visual is easy enough to understand, but remember that the audience hasn’t had the same amount of time to look at the slide as you have, so it’s much more difficult for them to grasp the key takeaway quickly. 

In the slide below from Edelman there are four different charts, but each one is communicating the same type of information. By mixing up the chart style like this it makes the slide overly complicated. Instead of showing four simple column charts, they’ve forced the audience to understand and interpret each type independently. This just makes it harder for the audience to grasp the key takeaways of the slide.

“Global Deck” Edelman Trust Barometer, 2012

Instead, ask yourself, what’s the key takeaway of the slide, and how does my chart or graphic help support that key takeaway. Avoid trying to make yourself look smart, and instead figure out the simplest way to communicate the idea you’re trying to communicate. 

This slide from Credit Suisse is a great example of keeping the chart simple and clear. It’s just a normal-looking stacked column chart with easy to read data labels, a clear background, and a simple takeaway. The result is an effective and professional looking slide that’s easy for the audience to understand. 

“Analyst and Investor Call” Credit Suisse, 2022

2. Simple Titles

The point of a title on a slide is to get a quick summary of the slide’s main takeaway, so the audience can better read and understand the details.

In this slide from BCG for example, the title says “Rising housing costs may be driving creatives out of the city”. So naturally, the audience is going to skim through the content looking for evidence of rising housing costs and creatives leaving the city, which makes for more effective delivery. (

“Melbourne as a Global Cultural Destination” BCG. For more BCG content be sure to check out our full BCG slide breakdown

But unfortunately, many titles aren’t this descriptive. Instead what I see are titles that tell me the topic of the slide and nothing else . I get an idea of what the slide is about, but I’m forced to come up with my own takeaway.

“Fixed Income Investor presentation” Credit Suisse, 2022

You see this especially on slides with summaries of data, like this slide from Salesforce about its finances. But even on these slides it’s usually a good idea to put a takeaway in the title.

“Finance Update Q4 FY21” Salesforce

In this example from Orsted , they’ve shown some annual financial data, but they’ve also summarized what they want the audience to take away from the slide – that they are in line with expectations. 

“Investor presentation Q4 and full-year 2020” Orsted, 2021

By including a full sentence for your title, ideally one that summarizes the main takeaway of the slide, you make it much easier for the audience to understand what it is you’re trying to tell them.  

3. Default PowerPoint Designs

The third mistake I see more often than I’d like is using default PowerPoint designs. The worst case of this is using old slide themes, like in this example. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in PowerPoint recognizes this design, and aesthetics aside, it just looks like the slide was thrown together last minute. 

“First 30 Days” Markstar, 2017

You certainly don’t want to overdesign your slide, but at the very least try to avoid the out-of-the-box designs PowerPoint provides for you. Many of these designs haven’t changed in years, and usually they’re meant for a different kind of presentation (like a school project). 

And the same goes for PowerPoint shapes, graphics, and even colors. They all come across as unprofessional and overused, so it’s in your best interest to avoid them altogether.  

But where I think this is most easy to mess up is with tables. A table like this for example looks fine enough, but with just a few tweaks it can be made to look significantly better.

In this example, all I did was bold the titles, turn the negative values red, left align the first column and right align the others, make the top line extra thick, then add other lines to separate the regions. The result is a much better looking, and much easier to read table. 

When it comes to design, even just a little bit of extra effort can help you avoid cliche, unprofessional looking slides.

4. Unrelated Content

In corporate style presentations, it’s completely okay to have lots of content, so long as each piece of content has a purpose. What I see way too often is stuff that’s just there to fill space, and doesn’t have an actual purpose. 

In this Starboard Value slide , there are a lot of unnecessary distractions. For example, the box at the bottom is really just a repeat of what’s in the subtitle. Likewise, there’s a lot of text in the bullet points that could be trimmed down or eliminated without changing the message of the slide. It would help the audience focus more on the key takeaways, without getting distracted by all the fluff. 

“Transforming Darden Restaurants” Starboard Value, 2014 See our full breakdown of this slide here .

But what bothers me the most is the picture at the bottom, which really isn’t adding to the slide in any meaningful way. Yes, it’s on topic – the slide is about breadsticks after all – but it’s not giving me any useful information. We all know what breadsticks look like, and this doesn’t help me understand the key takeaway any better. 

Pictures are typically the most common culprit when it comes to unrelated content. It can be really tempting to throw a picture on a slide to fill up the extra space – especially if that picture looks professional and seems to loosely match the topic of the slide. 

Even McKinsey is guilty of this sometimes, as in this example . The picture looks great, but it doesn’t help the audience understand the main message of the slide about digital manufacturing being a high priority for a majority of companies. Instead, it just distracts the audience. 

“Moving Laggards to Early Adopters” McKinsey & Co., 2018 Learn more about how McKinsey designs data heavy PowerPoint slides.

In this example from a different presentation, they kept the slide fairly simple, with only information that supports the main takeaway of the slide, and nothing else. The result is a clear and easy to understand slide with a well-supported takeaway. 

“Capturing the full electricity potential of the U.K.” McKinsey & Co., 2012

So when you’re adding content to your slide, whether that’s a picture, chart, or anything else, make sure it contributes to the message in some way. And if it doesn’t then just leave that part blank and adjust the other parts of the slide accordingly. 

5. Distracting Backgrounds

This is related to the last mistake about unrelated content but is important in and of itself. A bad background can completely ruin a presentation. At best it’s distracting, but at worst it looks horribly unprofessional and makes the content hard to look at. 

Once again this is where PowerPoint is to blame. Some of the default backgrounds make it almost impossible to read the text, especially if that text doesn’t provide any contrast.

But even simple backgrounds can be distracting, as in our previous example from Starboard Value . Shading the background makes it difficult for my eyes to know where to focus my attention. Not to mention it makes some of the text slightly harder to read. 

Even subtle text or images in the background can be distracting, as in this BCG example . 

“Projecting US Mail volumes to 2020” BCG, 2010

The general rule of thumb with backgrounds is if you notice it, you should change it. The idea is you want to reduce the number of distractions on your slide so that the audience can focus on the insights. In that regard, you can almost never go wrong with a plain white background. This keeps the audience focused on your content, and ultimately on your message. 

This slide from Accenture is a great example of a non-distracting background that keeps the emphasis on the content. Nothing is diverting my attention and I can focus on what they’re trying to tell me. 

“Fintech New York: Partnerships, Platforms and Open Innovation” Accenture, 2015

But of course, the background doesn’t always have to be white. Sometimes darker backgrounds work better for longer, live presentations, especially when those presentations are given on a large screen. 

In another example from later in the presentation, Accenture uses a darker blue background that’s simple, clear, and professional. And most importantly, it doesn’t take my attention away from the content on the slide. 

6. Not Guiding the Audience

Most modern business presentations are full of text and data, which can make it difficult for the audience to process the information on a slide and see the key insights . In a live presentation, it is even more difficult – the audience has to simultaneously listen to the speaker, read through the content on the slide, and think critically about the information. 

The easy way to manage this challenge is to guide the audience through your slide with visual cues – things like text, callouts, and boxes. Unfortunately, it is something that many people just don’t think to do.  What this leads to is dense, difficult to read slides , as in these two examples:

“Bridging the Gap Between CIO and CMO” Isobar, 2014

“Transforming Darden Restaurants” Starboard Value, 2014

And the same thing can happen with charts . By just putting up a chart with no real commentary or guidance, you make it hard for the audience to understand what it is you’re trying to tell them. 

“Fifth Assessment Report- Synthesis Report” IPCC, 2014

In many ways, this is the counterpoint to the last mistake. Whereas you don’t want unimportant pieces like your background to be distracting, you do want the important parts of your slide to be distracting, because it helps the audience quickly grasp the key takeaways. 

Returning to our Accenture example, notice how they’ve used bolded text to help call attention to what’s important. Likewise, they’ve also used a line to put emphasis on the title of the slide. 

Check out our full breakdown of this slide here .

This BCG slide has quite a bit of information on it, but they’ve made it easy to work through by drawing the most attention to the title with green font and large text, then the next amount of attention to the subtitles with bold black text and green lines underneath, and then the least amount of attention to the bullet points. It helps the process the information on the slide in the way they want them to – starting with the highest level idea, and working their way through the details. 

“Evaluating NYC media sector development and setting the stage for future growth” BCG, 2012

This chart from McKinsey is another good example of guiding the audience.  Instead of just keeping the chart plain, they’ve added callouts that help emphasize the message in the title. 

“Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation” McKinsey, 2017

Guiding the audience can be as simple as adding an arrow or bolding important text. But even small changes like this can make a big difference in your presentation. 

7. Too Many Colors

It can be tempting to use a variety of colors on your slide, but doing so just distracts the audience and takes attention away from the important parts. And not only that, it can look really unprofessional. 

On this slide for example they’ve decided to separate each of these sections by color to make it easier to distinguish between them. But instead of making it easier to read, the slide is difficult to understand and hard to look at. The sections are already naturally separated, with lines, titles, and even icons. But by adding bright colors, in addition to the orange and green that’s already on the slide, they’ve reduced the slide’s readability considerably. 

“Harnessing the Power of Entrepreneurs to Open Innovation” Accenture, 2015

The best slides use color strategically, to help highlight key points and ideas.

In this Bain slide for example, they’ve decided to highlight the important columns in red, while keeping the less important columns in grey. It provides a nice contrasting effect that helps emphasize the message. 

“2011 China Luxury Market Study” Bain, 2011

Likewise, this Deloitte slide contains a minimal amount of color, making it easy to sift through the data and focus on only what’s important. Not to mention it keeps the visuals of the slide clean and professional. 

“Consumer privacy in retail” Deloitte, 2019

It’s a bit counterintuitive, but when it comes to color, sometimes less is more.

Final Thoughts

A few simple tweaks to your presentation can really make a difference in both its quality and overall professionalism. Above all, be sure to focus on your main message, and avoid any distractions that might take away from that message. If you can keep an eye out for cliché, unprofessional, and meaningless content, you’ll be well on your way to creating high-quality, insight-rich presentations.

P.S. – If you’re really looking to up your PowerPoint game, be sure to check out our full courses: Advanced PowerPoint for Consultants and Advanced Presentations for Consultants .

You can watch a video version of this article on YouTube .

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PowerPoint Makeovers: The Reddit Pitch Deck

Can you remember a time when there was no Reddit? It’s hard to imagine in 2021… it would have been hard to imagine in 2011. When Reddit hit the scene as the front page of the internet in 2005, who could have known it would grow to become a zeitgeist of our time?

Founded by college buddies Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, Reddit was part of the now-legendary Y-Combinator program’s first class of startups. The pair of University of Virginia students envisioned an online bulletin board where users could post videos, text and links to other websites… sound familiar?

Thanks to that all-important Y Combinator seed funding, Reddit launched with a blast and within just about a year, the growing website was purchased by Conde Nast , publisher of major brands such as Vogue, GQ and Wired. Growth steadily continued, and Reddit reached 1 billion page views per month by early 2011, which it doubled by the next year. From there, the popularity only continued to increase exponentially.

Of course, no company rides the wave of incredible growth without funding, and Reddit – operating independently from Conde Nast since 2011 – was no exception. In 2014, Reddit raised a pivotal $50 million in funding thanks to a round led by former Y Combinator president Sam Altman. Other key players in the funding round , however, included names such as Jared Leto, Joshua Kushner and Snoop Dogg.

More than 52 million Redditors now have access to over 100,000 communities at their fingertips, including popular topics ranging from “gadgets” and “television” to the practical “build a PC” and “personal finance.”  In August 2021, Reddit was valued at $9.6 billion . To get there, however, Reddit’s founders started with a pitch.

We took a look at the pitch deck Reddit used for that all-important 2014 funding round, and we have to say it reminds us a lot of the company itself: quirky, fun and memorable. You can’t argue that kittens and unicorns make a strong impression… but was it the most professional impression? If you’re Reddit, you can probably get away with extra quirkiness, but not every company is looking to attract investors like Snoop Dogg.

So, we decided to redesign the pitch deck and give it the Beautiful.ai treatment. We think our version is just as fun, but our design is more cohesive, and it includes better branding. We let our AI take care of the structure, making sure every slide was constructed using professional-level principles of good design any time content is added. 

What do you think? Do you like our PowerPoint makeover ? Is our redesigned Reddit pitch deck , “beautiful?” 

It’s easy to spend hours tweaking every design detail in a traditional PowerPoint presentation. Are the margins all the same? Are elements consistent? Is the color scheme cohesive? Instead, save tons of time using Beautiful.ai by preselecting a custom theme and automatically applying style options like typography and color palettes to each slide.

We set the theme of our Reddit pitch deck makeover by selecting the brand’s colors, and we polished off our deck by adding the company’s logo to the footer of every slide. To customize our pitch deck template , just change the colors and logo to match your own.

Slide 1: Reddit Title

Don’t get us wrong. Reddit’s original 2014 pitch deck opened with an eye-catching and memorable image of a kitten riding a unicorn. How can you top that? We gave the title slide a more professional and branded twist with our Headline slide template , complete with the company logo pulled from our vast, searchable library of photos, icons and logos.

Slides 2-4: Reddit by the Numbers

Reddit’s 2014 pitch deck featured a few slides that highlighted Reddit’s achievements to date. While we admire a line chart superimposed over a curious kitty cat staring into space, we decided to stick with a more simple, branded approach. We selected our Line Chart Smart Slide template , and simply input the same data from Reddit’s original graph. Voila! Artificial intelligence transformed the figures into a vivid infographic in the pre-set color scheme. We brought the slide to life by animating it with just a couple of clicks.

Reddit’s pitch deck featured other slides featuring a hodgepodge of statistics, such as the company’s total monthly visitors and pageviews. Plenty of solid information, but the slides were… busy. We took a less cluttered and more organized approach and chose two of the facts to feature on their own Headline slide templates . The simple presentation will grab attention and create emphasis. Once you have your audience’s attention, you can verbally highlight the other statistics.

Slide 5: AdAge Quote

We love a good quote. Reddit’s 2014 pitch deck featured a brag-worthy statement from AdAge , marveling that the website had become, “mainstream media.” The quote was obviously important to Reddit – and effective – so we kept it in our redesigned slide deck using our Quotes Smart Slide template . Our custom color palette and typography were automatically applied to the slide, and we added a free stock photo from our image library for some extra pizzazz.

Slides 6-7: Engagement

We wanted to include some more newsworthy facts from Reddit’s pitch deck, but we decided to present them in a more engaging and organized format. We chose our Arrow Bars Smart Slide template to present five facts, and we animated the infographic to keep our audience engaged.

We added additional Reddit statistics to our Team Members Smart Slide template . Normally used to introduce people, the format was perfect for describing details of three popular subreddits.

Slide 8-9: Ad Opportunities

The next slides in Reddit’s 2014 pitch deck were more cluttered examples. We presented the company’s all-important advertising opportunities using our Headline slide template : short, sweet and to the point. We easily sourced an engaging stock photo from our free image library, and, of course, the colors automatically adjusted to match Reddit’s brand. We further recounted Reddit’s stated engagement opportunities for brands using our Photo Grid Smart Slide templates .

Slide 11: Relevant, Reliable, Real

Reddit closed its 2014 pitch deck with a powerful statement . Reddit wanted potential investors to know it was relevant, reliable and real. While we compliment the company again on its creative use of kittens, we chose to highlight the statement using our Headline slide template along with a colorful community of Redditors. The slide was a breeze to create thanks to our preselected theme.

Slide 12: Contact Us

Any good pitch is going to leave potential investors with the company’s contact details, and we had just the slide template to do the job. We recreated Reddit’s final slide using our Contact Us Smart Slide template . The Beautiful.ai template provides fields to input information like name, address, phone number and email address, then our AI perfectly positions the information using the principles of great design . 

So, what did you think of our PowerPoint makeover ? Did we improve upon the Reddit pitch deck, or did you miss the kittens? Either way, was our design, “beautiful?”

Samantha Pratt Lile

Samantha is an independent journalist, editor, blogger and content manager. Examples of her published work can be found at sites including the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, and Buzzfeed.

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Home » Campus Life » Career Education » Get Experience » Undergraduate Research » Undergraduate Scholarly Showcase » 2024 Presentations

2024 Showcase Presentations

At the 2024 Showcase, more than 350 students from more than 25 disciplines will present nearly 275 research projects, including more than 200 posters, 28 live podium presentations and 44 video presentations.

Students who choose this format present their research in an original five-minute video in one of the following categories:

• Chemical and Cellular Frontiers (#A-01 to #A-03)
• Experiential Learning (#B-01 to #B-04)
• Green Cincinnati (#C-01 to #C-18)
• Music and Culture (#D-01 to #D-04)
• Substance Use, Mental and Behavioral Heath, and Sociology (#E-01 to #E-10)
• The Social Safety Net (#F-01 to #F-05)

As individuals or small teams, students create posters that convey the purpose, process, and outcome of their project with aesthetic appeal. Each student delivers a five-minute overview of their project to reviewers in person on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.

• View or download the Morning Poster Guide
• View or download the Afternoon Poster Guide

Podium Presentations

Students individually develop and deliver an eight-minute presentation live in person on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. View podium presentation details

College of Engineering

April 15, 2024

Graduate Research Symposium creates opportunities to collaborate

May 2 event is free, open to public.

The 2024 Michigan State University College of Engineering Graduate Research Symposium will be held Thursday, May 2 in the Engineering Building and showcase the work of nearly 200 students. This event, created by the college in 2012, gives participants ranging from first-year graduates to those nearing completion of their Ph.D. the opportunity to share their work and network with faculty, staff and industry partners. They will also gain valuable experience giving research presentations that capture the priorities and mission of the college’s eight academic departments. The Graduate Research Symposium is free and open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to register by Friday, April 19 at the following link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2024-engineering-graduate-research-symposium-tickets-687947307917. Guests expected to attend the symposium and provide welcome remarks include Engineering Dean Leo Kempel, MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz, Interim Provost Thomas Jeitschko and Graduate School Dean and Vice Provost Pero Dagbovie. The symposium fosters a spirit of collaboration that helps graduate students learn what it takes to give effective presentations and use these skills in academic and professional settings. The highest scoring presentations will be recognized by judges. “The goal is to showcase research conducted by graduate students across the college and provide connections for faculty, staff, industry partners and graduate students,” said Sandra Christlieb, the college’s assistant director for graduate student services “This event creates opportunities to learn, engage and collaborate.” Sampling of presentation to be given at 2024 symposium:

• “Opening a pill bottle can be a pain: Quantifying adult and child abilities for access to child resistant packaging”
• “Smooth Moves: Kinematic smoothness as an assessment tool for functional movement disorder and outcomes from a one-week intensive therapy.”
• “The Hospital Patient: Identifying changes in average and peak pressures with a new positioning system used to mitigate tissue injury”
• “Tracking of sexually transmitted diseases in the Detroit metro area by molecular analysis of environmental samples”
• “Conflict resolution behavior of autonomous vehicles in mixed traffic environment”
• “Electrifying travels along Lake Michigan circuit”
• “Safety and operational evaluation of acceleration and deceleration lanes at freeway interchanges”
• “Understanding the importance of communication in the evolution of cooperation.”

Symposium schedule for Thursday, May 2:

• 8 - 9 am: Registration, check-in, poster set up
• 9 - 9:30 am: Welcome remarks
• 9:30 – 11 am: First poster session
• 11 am - 12:30 pm: Second poster session
• 12:30 – 1:30 pm: Lunch
• 1:30 – 3 pm: Symposium Showcase and afternoon refreshments
• 3-3:30 pm: 3-Minute Thesis Awards, Poster awards and event closing

Community, industry and corporate sponsors:

• DOW Chemical
• Jackson National Life
• Michigan Department of Transportation
• MSU Facility for Rare Isotope Beams
• MSU AgBioResearch

For more information about the symposium and the College of Engineering’s graduate studies programs, visit engineering.msu.edu/academics/graduate-studies/symposium. Written by Eric Lacy, [email protected]. See more at the Engineering Media and Public Relations page.

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QS World University Rankings rates MIT No. 1 in 11 subjects for 2024

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QS World University Rankings has placed MIT in the No. 1 spot in 11 subject areas for 2024, the organization announced today.

The Institute received a No. 1 ranking in the following QS subject areas: Chemical Engineering; Civil and Structural Engineering; Computer Science and Information Systems; Data Science and Artificial Intelligence; Electrical and Electronic Engineering; Linguistics; Materials Science; Mechanical, Aeronautical, and Manufacturing Engineering; Mathematics; Physics and Astronomy; and Statistics and Operational Research.

MIT also placed second in five subject areas: Accounting and Finance; Architecture/Built Environment; Biological Sciences; Chemistry; and Economics and Econometrics.

For 2024, universities were evaluated in 55 specific subjects and five broader subject areas. MIT was ranked No. 1 in the broader subject area of Engineering and Technology and No. 2 in Natural Sciences.

Quacquarelli Symonds Limited subject rankings, published annually, are designed to help prospective students find the leading schools in their field of interest. Rankings are based on research quality and accomplishments, academic reputation, and graduate employment.

MIT has been ranked as the No. 1 university in the world by QS World University Rankings for 12 straight years.

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Shenandoah university research expo presentations now available.

April 15, 2024

Shenandoah University Research Expo (SURE) 2024 presentations are now available for viewing online at sites.google.com/su.edu/sure2024/home . Shenandoah University’s premier event features undergraduate and graduate students’ research and creative projects. The virtual format ensures the entire SU community can view student video submissions and the hard work that was put into each project. Questions? Contact Audra Gollenberg, Ph.D., [email protected] .

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Main navigation, usf cjmhsa tac hosts training on the mental health parity and addiction equity act.

President of New Futures Michele Merritt, JD, presents at the training.

• April 15, 2024
• College News , Mental Health Law and Policy

The USF Criminal Justice, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Technical Assistance Center (CJMHSA TAC) convened a training in Palm Coast, FL. The purpose of this engagement was to present to local community providers regarding the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), otherwise known as the federal parity law.

Abby Shockley, MPH, CPH , director of the center, was one of the facilitators of the training. Michele Merritt, JD, who serves as the president of New Futures, a New England-Based policy-oriented nonprofit, also facilitated the training.

The training served as a comprehensive primer for participants with the session summarizing various aspects of the law, including examples of ways to measure parity compliance, appeals processes, and identifying red flags in coverage limitations that may require notification to enforcement bodies. Participants gained insights into measuring parity compliance through examples of key indicators, such as analyzing quantitative data on utilization management practices, out-of-pocket costs, and coverage limitations for mental health services compared to medical/surgical services. The training provided participants with tools to identify and address parity violations effectively.

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