How to Do a Good PowerPoint Lecture Category: Academia Posted on: November 6, 2006 12:18 PM, by Chad Orzel Having strongly stated my opinion that PowerPoint is not actively evil, but can be used to give good scientific presentations as well as soul-crushingly dull bullet-point talks, I feel like I ought to say something to back it up. Here, then, are some of the rules of thumb I use when putting together a good PowerPoint talk. 1) Know Your Audience . This is probably the most important rule in giving a talk, no matter what medium you plan to use. A talk aimed at an audience of undergraduate science majors is a very different thing than a research talk given at an international conference, or a public lecture given to a general audience. Don't assume you can splice one of these together out of pieces of another-- in certain circumstances, you can re-use slides from a talk aimed at one audience for a different kind of audience, but it's n