what does presentation mean in literature

.css-1qrtm5m{display:block;margin-bottom:8px;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:14px;line-height:1.5714285714285714;-webkit-letter-spacing:-0.35px;-moz-letter-spacing:-0.35px;-ms-letter-spacing:-0.35px;letter-spacing:-0.35px;font-weight:300;color:#606F7B;}@media (min-width:600px){.css-1qrtm5m{font-size:16px;line-height:1.625;-webkit-letter-spacing:-0.5px;-moz-letter-spacing:-0.5px;-ms-letter-spacing:-0.5px;letter-spacing:-0.5px;}} best practices The skill all powerful storytellers share — and why it’s more important now than ever

by TED Masterclass Team • September 30, 2021

To be human is to tell stories. Stories are how we make sense of the world and share our ideas, passions, and unique perspectives. This TED-Ed video shares how presentation literacy, a skill to improve public speaking, can transform storytelling into your superpower.

An impactful story stays with your audience long after you’ve told it. For thousands of years humans have shared stories that ignite a “spark” in their audience and evoke a sense of empathy, trust, and connection. Listeners pass powerful messages along, spreading interesting ideas and stories far and wide.

The importance of presentation literacy

While storytelling remains as critical as ever, the qualities of an impactful story have had to evolve to continue to captivate in our modern world. As the speed at which information and headlines are shared has accelerated, the average attention span has been reduced to just eight seconds . Eight seconds! In our current media environment it now requires more than words to captivate people. This is where presentation literacy comes into play.

Touted as “ a core skill of the 21st century ”, presentation literacy can be a critical skill to leverage in your career. It requires us to create a compelling story that engages the audience’s other senses too, using high-resolution pictures, videos, or music. Often, it’s a combination of all of the above in addition to words, spelled out and spoken, that make a story truly shine.

In mastering presentation literacy, a storyteller ushers in a clear vision, replete with supplementary audiovisual cues to convey a message or, perhaps, convince others of it. While honing presentation literacy is immensely rewarding, the idea of putting it to practice on the stage can be terrifying to many people .

What presentation literacy can teach you

Many powerful speakers have struggled with stage anxiety. Even some acclaimed TED speakers, as shared by TED curator Chris Anderson , aren’t exempt from this: Monica Lewinsky thought she wasn’t worthy of a spot on the TED stage; Jacqueline Novogratz resisted public speaking in her younger years; and even Elon Musk wasn’t reputed as a “public speaker.” And yet, their TED Talks have been collectively viewed over 60 million times.

These speakers were able to cast aside their insecurities to tell a story that they wanted others to hear. And as a result, they have amassed millions of views and received critical acclaim among their colleagues and many of those who’ve listened to their Talks.

Mastering public speaking and presentation literacy isn’t just limited to speaking onstage. The skill is also valuable in your everyday life. It can teach you how to communicate with others effectively, articulate your ideas clearly, and speak with confidence, whether to colleagues, new acquaintances, family, or friends.

Innovating storytelling

Technology has opened up avenues that allow us to tell our stories in myriad ways. Anderson explains, “we live in an age where you don’t have to be able to speak to thousands of people at a time to have an outsized impact. It could just be you talking intimately to a video camera, and letting the Internet do the rest.”

The hardest part is plucking up the courage to try. We’re ready when you are: To learn how to hone your presentation literacy skills and master public speaking, visit our website, TED Masterclass . Our course guides you through the storytelling process, so you can present your most pressing ideas clearly, concisely, and impactfully.

© 2024 TED Conferences, LLC. All rights reserved. Please note that the TED Talks Usage policy does not apply to this content and is not subject to our creative commons license.

The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus , a companion to The Emotion Thesaurus , releases May 13th.

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Representation in Literature: Why It’s Important & How To Handle It

October 10, 2018 by ANGELA ACKERMAN

Happy to welcome Deborah Dixon , a passionate author, editor, and racial justice activist to talk a bit on Representation in Literature, a topic of importance and something I think many of us want to understand better so we can encourage the right sort of discussions and help bring about change. Please read on!

The issue of representation has become an important one in literature and throughout the entertainment industry. As an author and publisher of color, I am often asked to offer insight on how best to include characters of diverse backgrounds. Specifically, this means characters from minority or underrepresented groups, such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA+ persons, religious minorities, those with disabilities, and to some extent, socioeconomic minorities. In this article, I will use the term “minority” to refer to members of all of these groups.

First, my credentials: I am Jamaican, neurodivergent, and simultaneously a citizen of and immigrant to the United States, among other things. These credentials do matter, because the basis of a person’s regard for your opinion on these sensitive matters starts with your background. It isn’t the whole picture; not every minority person has the same breadth of experiences, and many majority members have been exposed to the problems that minority members face. Also, like anything else, background and privilege are nuanced. Even I have some sources of privilege: I am cisgender and not physically disabled.

Also valued is the nature of a writer’s privilege. I won’t discuss privilege and entitlement too much here, as there are plenty of resources on both, such as this exploration of the different elements of identity.

There are two primary reasons why representation is important: inclusivity and perception .

Seeing people who look, act, and experience life like them in media makes a person feel included in a society, and it reinforces positive views of themselves and what they can achieve in society. Also, members of other groups, especially majority groups, base their ideas of groups on what they see in the media . For example, a hiring manager who watches too many police procedurals might view candidates of minority races as having criminal tendencies.

For people who exist outside of these marginalized and underrepresented groups, it can be hard to imagine life with the experiences and hardships that minorities experience. Without those experiences, writing characters of diverse backgrounds can seem daunting.

A good start is to be cognizant of the problems that your character would face and when those problems would have to be addressed. People of minority groups are still people; we have similar needs and similar motivations. The main difference is in the ways that society and its structures are arrayed against any particular group.

Therefore, in some situations, it will be perfectly acceptable to write a minority character just as you would any other. If a character’s romantic relationships are never brought up, then their sexual orientation might be little more than a footnote. Likewise, a black student’s college career might be just like that of a white student if the college itself is diverse and tolerant.

However, if the character is placed in a situation where their identity would be a factor, then it would be irresponsible to overlook it. For example, a black character being pulled over by the police should be described as feeling exceptional anxiety over their possible treatment by the officers. Whether the writer feels that this is a legitimate fear is irrelevant; it is what black people experience, and it is a problem that we continue to battle . Any work that included a black character getting along famously with the police would be soundly ridiculed by the black community.

Also, it might be tempting to fall back on stereotypes, but these are harmful images that still negatively affect members of those minorities. Take, for example, the common use of Middle Eastern characters as villains , or the portrayal of Native Americans as oversexualized savages . If these are the characters that are being written, then we would rather not have them at all!

Remember that minority characters are not there to be “exotic” ornaments for your plot. One striking example I encountered as an editor was a white writer using an almost all-white cast who included an Asian woman as a manicurist. It was meant as a cheeky observation, but in practice, it supported yet another harmful stereotype, and it would have reinforced to readers that Asian woman are only fit to run nail salons.

Always Do the Research

There is plenty of first-hand material about the situations that minority groups face, and many companies, including mine , offer research specific to fiction writing. If you happen to know someone from the group that you are interested in writing about, then ask that person if they can offer any insight, and be prepared for them to possibly turn you down.

Finally, remember that this is a cultural exchange; you must offer something in return. Consider promoting minority authors. Don’t just tack on characters to be “diverse,” and don’t borrow elements from a group without context, such as European knights using scimitars because they’re “cool.”

For a well-known example of what not to do , observe J. K. Rowling’s approach to including Native Americans in the Potterverse. She combined the hundreds of Native American cultures into one homogenous “community,” reappropriated important cultural touchstones, and supported harmful narratives of Natives accepting white colonialism. Although she was called out on this , she has not publicly apologized or changed her approach.

The best recent example of representation being done right is a film: 2016’s The Accountant , in which the main character, played by Ben Affleck, is high-functioning autistic. While the character is written in a very predictable fashion—aural oversensitivity, emotional vacancy—Affleck’s performance provides nuance that elevates the entire story. It’s clear that he and his supporting cast did the research, and while the movie’s overall effect on the autistic community is debatable, many of us saw pieces of ourselves in its protagonist .

Although the entertainment industry at large is welcoming more content written by minority members, most stories that reach the mainstream are still ones written by the majority—white, straight people. The majority still has a much stronger voice. Use it to amplify positive portrayals of the people who need them the most.

As with anything else, when in doubt, ask.

Look for editors who specifically offer sensitivity reading as part of their processes. Many editors, like those at Shalamar, offer diversity feedback as a matter of course.  Here’s an additional resource to check out if you are incorporating diversity in your work:

Writing Diversity Checklist

We welcome respectful discussion–if you have questions or comments, debra is here to discuss.

Shalamar is a book publishing and author advocacy company based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Created in 2016 by a trio of writers, Shalamar aims to break down barriers to entry in publishing by offering accessible and affordable services to new and undiscovered writers.

The company also supports initiatives to amplify voices from underrepresented and marginalized groups. They can be found at @shalamarllp on Facebook and @ShalamarNOLA everywhere else.

Deborah Dixon is a cofounder, author, and editor at Shalamar . She has published two novels, seven novellas, and numerous short stories of her own.

She is a digital rights and racial justice activist, and her opinions on social issues, the publishing process, and Saints football can be found on Twitter at @Deboracracy .

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers , a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

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Reader Interactions

October 18, 2020 at 10:26 am

I believe that books are the essence of who we are and who we dream of being. Therefore, representation is a crucial component in building the identity of an individual and its sense of belonging. Reading about someone who looks like you makes you feel that you can achieve anything and that you truly belong in the society. Seeing someone just like me being reflected in a book makes me feel that I’m not the outsider that I always thought I was. However, there is indeed a lack of representation of minority groups in books. I totally agree that the lack of representation has become an important issue in literature and that minorities should be depicted more in books. In that being said however, any representation should not be accepted just because of the lack of it. Disrespectful and damaging representations of minorities should not be tolerated just for the sake of finally being represented in books.

August 13, 2019 at 11:26 pm

Great stuff, and the Shalamar tips before publishing are excellent and extensive! Thanks for this. Will help my Gr 12 English class think oppressive representation that occurs in some of these more subtle ways.

August 13, 2019 at 11:40 pm

August 22, 2019 at 3:51 pm

Thank you so much Wes, and best wishes for your English class! Glad you found this information and the resources helpful. Feel free to reach out if I can help further!

October 12, 2018 at 12:08 am

As a Native American author, I want to thank you for this post. Keep fighting the good fight!

It is hard to find books where people like me aren’t A) Sexy Shifters B) Poor C) Swindlers

Which is funny, since none of the Lenni-Lenape people that I know are any of those. Hang on… *runs outside, looks at the moon, tries real real extra super hard* Nope. Still not a shifter. Darn. 😉

My people also didn’t wear huge feather headdresses, live in teepees, say “howgh” for hello, or most of the other traits that perhaps were exhibited in the western tribes. We did, however, influence the creation of the original laws of this country, such as the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Obviously not well enough to be considered human until 1879, or be eligible to be citizen of the land we’d lived on for thousands of years until 1924, or get the Voting Rights Act fully nailed down (looking at two states right now…). But hey, we tried.

If anyone out there does have a book with well-written Lenni-Lenape characters, please track me down and drop a buy link. I’m always looking!

October 12, 2018 at 2:24 pm

Preach it! I would love to sit many, many non-Native writers (sadly, including some Black ones) down and have them write this sentence a few hundred times:

Native American communities are NOT monolithic.

As you can see above, I refuse to let Rowling live it down.

If anyone out there has a story will well-developed Lenni-Lenape characters, I just might publish it. 😉

October 11, 2018 at 10:02 pm

That’s definitely some great stuff, and I largely agree. I do take issue with simply saying there are some things you should “never do.” For example, making an autistic character have some unique strange ability can work if it’s done well or the usual cliches of the trope are subverted.

I’m not saying that just for the sake of debate. I have autism myself, and my current story in progress plays on that trope.

October 12, 2018 at 2:13 pm

Thank you Claire! And thanks for checking out our list!

The things that made it onto the Never-Do list aren’t there because they can’t be done well, but because when they are done (well or otherwise), they consistently cause harm to real, living people of that particular group.

Regarding autistic characters, I’ll go and change my wording on the list, but I did think specifically of powers that are related to a character’s autism, correcting the ‘imbalance’ of the disability. (An autistic character with, say, lightning powers, unrelated to her autism, would probably be okay.)

Objectively, a disability-superpower autistic character could possibly be done well, especially by an autistic writer, but I respectfully disagree that the character *should* be done even so. Even if the character was brilliant and an excellent role model, like a neurodivergent Wonder Woman, she would still be perpetrating objectifying stereotypes about how we need a ‘cure’ to balance out our deficiencies. It also isolates a model minority within the autistic community, as it elevates ‘superhuman’ autistics (ie savants) above others on the spectrum, valuing them more and devaluing the others as useless or helpless.

(Here’s an article that goes into model minorities more: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-good-doctor-is-bad-medicine-autism-1098809 )

So while this kind of character could work from a character-development standpoint, her existence would cause strain on those of us (like you and me) who deal with autism stereotypes regularly. My opinion is that the character isn’t worth the harm done, but we likely have different experiences and observations that lead to different conclusions. 🙂

October 11, 2018 at 9:15 pm

Wonderful! Very revelant!

October 12, 2018 at 1:29 pm

Thanks for reading, Traci!!

October 11, 2018 at 2:03 pm

First of all, Who Dat!!!

Thank you so much for writing this article, Deborah. I loved that you explained that a writer needs to remember that diverse characters are still human beings. I also hate that you had to say that.

I had a small press from Mississippi, where I’m from, reach out to me about wanting to work with me. The minute they found out I was a lesbian they quickly let me know that they could not work with a story with LGBTQ+ characters, because they wouldn’t know how to market it. It was shocking and saddening. Needless to say, I did not work with them.

Thank you again, and I look forward to checking out your company and your work!

October 11, 2018 at 4:12 pm

Yeah you rite Keli!!!!

I’m sorry to hear about your experience with that press! And yet I’m not surprised. The inclusion of underrepresented writers ourselves is another topic that I’m passionate about, and fortunately I get to work toward that goal through Shalamar.

Being treated that way, particularly by a press that sought you out, had to have stung, and rightfully so; but, with the benefit of hindsight, people that closed-minded would have been rough to work with anyway, so maybe it was for the better, rudeness and prejudice aside.

(Marketing professionals are specifically taught to adapt to different audience, genres, and trends, so that excuse is always code for “we don’t want to work with you.”)

I hope you found a much better home for your writing, and would love to hear from you anytime!

October 11, 2018 at 10:23 am

Glad to have you here discussing something that I think confuses a lot of people because sometimes we can see part of the picture, but not the whole thing and so we don’t necessarily realize the ripples that come from stereotypes or the level of inequity out there.

In our fiction it is our job to make the reader feel part of another’s point of view. I think as a Caucasian and a Caucasian author, I need to work harder to do what I can to make sure all voices are represented. Change comes about through understanding, and this happens at all levels from governing entities to the drivers of industries to the producers of content and the consumers of that content.

Thanks for being here!

October 11, 2018 at 9:06 am

Hi everyone! Angela, thank you SO MUCH for your help and your kindness! You are an inspiration to me as an author advocate. <3

Readers: Thanks for checking out this article! I am happy to answer any further questions you might have here. You can also contact me directly if you'd prefer a one-on-one conversation.

Much love from New Orleans!

October 11, 2018 at 9:03 am

Thanks for being here today, Deborah!

October 11, 2018 at 3:59 pm

Hi Becca! Thanks for having me! 🙂

[…] Ackerman talks about the importance of inclusivity and perception.   Inclusivity prescribes that the characters in the texts that we use should be as […]

[…] Deborah Dixon examine representation in literature: why it’s important and how to handle it. […]

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The formal presentation of information is divided into two broad categories: Presentation Skills and Personal Presentation .

These two aspects are interwoven and can be described as the preparation, presentation and practice of verbal and non-verbal communication. 

This article describes what a presentation is and defines some of the key terms associated with presentation skills.

Many people feel terrified when asked to make their first public talk.  Some of these initial fears can be reduced by good preparation that also lays the groundwork for making an effective presentation.

A Presentation Is...

A presentation is a means of communication that can be adapted to various speaking situations, such as talking to a group, addressing a meeting or briefing a team.

A presentation can also be used as a broad term that encompasses other ‘speaking engagements’ such as making a speech at a wedding, or getting a point across in a video conference.

To be effective, step-by-step preparation and the method and means of presenting the information should be carefully considered. 

A presentation requires you to get a message across to the listeners and will often contain a ' persuasive ' element. It may, for example, be a talk about the positive work of your organisation, what you could offer an employer, or why you should receive additional funding for a project.

The Key Elements of a Presentation

Making a presentation is a way of communicating your thoughts and ideas to an audience and many of our articles on communication are also relevant here, see: What is Communication? for more.

Consider the following key components of a presentation:

Ask yourself the following questions to develop a full understanding of the context of the presentation.

When and where will you deliver your presentation?

There is a world of difference between a small room with natural light and an informal setting, and a huge lecture room, lit with stage lights. The two require quite different presentations, and different techniques.

Will it be in a setting you are familiar with, or somewhere new?

If somewhere new, it would be worth trying to visit it in advance, or at least arriving early, to familiarise yourself with the room.

Will the presentation be within a formal or less formal setting?

A work setting will, more or less by definition, be more formal, but there are also various degrees of formality within that.

Will the presentation be to a small group or a large crowd?

Are you already familiar with the audience?

With a new audience, you will have to build rapport quickly and effectively, to get them on your side.

What equipment and technology will be available to you, and what will you be expected to use?

In particular, you will need to ask about microphones and whether you will be expected to stand in one place, or move around.

What is the audience expecting to learn from you and your presentation?

Check how you will be ‘billed’ to give you clues as to what information needs to be included in your presentation.

All these aspects will change the presentation. For more on this, see our page on Deciding the Presentation Method .

The role of the presenter is to communicate with the audience and control the presentation.

Remember, though, that this may also include handing over the control to your audience, especially if you want some kind of interaction.

You may wish to have a look at our page on Facilitation Skills for more.

The audience receives the presenter’s message(s).

However, this reception will be filtered through and affected by such things as the listener’s own experience, knowledge and personal sense of values.

See our page: Barriers to Effective Communication to learn why communication can fail.

The message or messages are delivered by the presenter to the audience.

The message is delivered not just by the spoken word ( verbal communication ) but can be augmented by techniques such as voice projection, body language, gestures, eye contact ( non-verbal communication ), and visual aids.

The message will also be affected by the audience’s expectations. For example, if you have been billed as speaking on one particular topic, and you choose to speak on another, the audience is unlikely to take your message on board even if you present very well . They will judge your presentation a failure, because you have not met their expectations.

The audience’s reaction and therefore the success of the presentation will largely depend upon whether you, as presenter, effectively communicated your message, and whether it met their expectations.

As a presenter, you don’t control the audience’s expectations. What you can do is find out what they have been told about you by the conference organisers, and what they are expecting to hear. Only if you know that can you be confident of delivering something that will meet expectations.

See our page: Effective Speaking for more information.

How will the presentation be delivered?

Presentations are usually delivered direct to an audience.  However, there may be occasions where they are delivered from a distance over the Internet using video conferencing systems, such as Skype.

It is also important to remember that if your talk is recorded and posted on the internet, then people may be able to access it for several years. This will mean that your contemporaneous references should be kept to a minimum.

Impediments

Many factors can influence the effectiveness of how your message is communicated to the audience.

For example background noise or other distractions, an overly warm or cool room, or the time of day and state of audience alertness can all influence your audience’s level of concentration.

As presenter, you have to be prepared to cope with any such problems and try to keep your audience focussed on your message.   

Our page: Barriers to Communication explains these factors in more depth.

Continue to read through our Presentation Skills articles for an overview of how to prepare and structure a presentation, and how to manage notes and/or illustrations at any speaking event.

Continue to: Preparing for a Presentation Deciding the Presentation Method

See also: Writing Your Presentation | Working with Visual Aids Coping with Presentation Nerves | Dealing with Questions Learn Better Presentation Skills with TED Talks

The Presentation of Speech, Writing and Thought

• First Online: 04 October 2023

Cite this chapter

• Jane Lugea 3 &
• Brian Walker 4  

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In this chapter, we turn our attention to the presentation of speech, thought and writing in a text—or Discourse Presentation as it is also known. The presentation of what characters or other people said, wrote or thought is an essential component of both fiction and non-fiction. The model of Discourse Presentation we describe in this chapter is based on Short ( Language and Literature 21:18–32, 2012), which is a development of the original model introduced by Leech and Short ( Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. Longman, 2007 [1981]). In this chapter, we first explain what is meant by Discourse Presentation and then describe the model using examples mainly drawn from the HUM19UK corpus of nineteenth-century novels. We then demonstrate one way in which corpus methods can be used in the analysis of speech, writing and thought in prose fiction.

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Walker, B. and Karpenko-Seccombe, T. 2017. Speech Presentation and Summary in the BBC News Online Coverage of a Russian TV Interview with Vladimir Putin. CADAAD Journal 9, 2: 79–96.

Waugh, E. 1967. Mr. Loveday’s Little Outing. In The Penguin Book of English Short Stories, ed. C. Dolley, 293–301. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd.

Werth, P. 1999. Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse . London: Longman.

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Lugea, J., Walker, B. (2023). The Presentation of Speech, Writing and Thought. In: Stylistics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10422-0_4

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Presentations: Oral Presentations

• Poster Design
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• Oral Presentations
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Oral Presentations Purpose

An Oral Research Presentation is meant to showcase your research findings. A successful oral research presentation should: communicate the importance of your research; clearly state your findings and the analysis of those findings; prompt discussion between researcher and audience.  Below you will find information on how to create and give a successful oral presentation.  

Creating an Effective Presentation

Who has a harder job the speaker? Or, the audience?

Most people think speaker has the hardest job during an oral presentation, because they are having to stand up in a room full of people and give a presentation. However, if the speaker is not engaging and if the material is way outside of the audiences knowledge level, the audience can have a difficult job as well. Below you will find some tips on how to be an effective presenter and how to engage with your audience.

Organization of a Presentation  

Introduction/Beginning

How are you going to begin?  How are you going to get the attention of your audience? You need to take the time and think about how you are going to get started!

Here are some ways you could start:

• Ask the audience a question
• make a statement
• show them something

No matter how you start your presentation it needs to relate to your research and capture the audiences attention.  

Preview what you are going to discuss .  Audiences do not like to be manipulated or tricked. Tell the audience exactly what you are going to discuss, this will help them follow along.  *Do not say you are going to cover three points and then try to cover 8 points.

At the end of your introduction, the audience should feel like they know exactly what you are going to  discuss and exactly how you are going to get there.  

Body/Middle

Conclusion/End

Delivery and Communication

Eye Contact

Making eye contact is a great way to engage with your audience.  Eye contact should be no longer than 2-3 seconds per person.  Eye contact for much longer than that can begin to make the audience member feel uncomfortable.

Smiling lets attendees know you are happy to be there and that you are excited to talk with them about your project.

We all know that body language says a lot, so here are some things you should remember when giving your presentation.

• Stand with both feet on the floor, not with one foot crossed over the other. 
• Do not stand with your hands in your pockets, or with your arms crossed.
• Stand tall with confidence and own your space (remember you are the expert).  

Abbreviated Notes

Having a written set of notes or key points that you want to address can help prevent you from reading the poster. 

Speak Clearly

Sometimes when we get nervous we begin to talk fast and blur our words.  It is important that you make sure every word is distinct and clear. A great way to practice your speech is to say tongue twisters. 

Ten tiny tots tottered toward the shore

Literally literary. Literally literary.  Literally literary.

Sally soon saw that she should sew some sheets.

Avoid Fillers

Occasionally we pick up fillers that we are not aware of, such as um, like, well, etc. One way to get rid of fillers is to have a friend listen to your speech and every time you say a "filler" have that friend tap you on the arm or say your name.  This will bring the filler to light, then you can practice avoiding that filler.

Manage Anxiety

Many people get nervous when they are about to speak to a crowd of people.  Below are ways that you can manage your anxiety levels. 

• Practice, Practice, Practice - the more prepared you are the less nervous you will be.
• Recognize that anxiety is just a big shot of adrenalin.
• Take deep breaths before your presentation to calm you down. 

Components of an Oral Research Presentation

Introduction

The introduction section of your oral presentation should consist of 3 main parts.  

Part 1: Existing facts

In order to give audience members the "full picture", you first need to provide them with information about past research.  What facts already exist? What is already known about your research area?

Part 2: Shortcomings

Once you have highlighted past research and existing facts. You now need to address what is left to be known, or what shortcomings exist within the current information.  This should set the groundwork for your experiment.  Keep in mind, how does your research fill these gaps or help address these questions? 

Part 3: Purpose or Hypothesis

After you have addressed past/current research and have identified shortcomings/gaps, it is now time to address your research.  During this portion of the introduction you need to tell viewers why you are conducting your research experiement/study, and what you hope to accomplish by doing so. 

In this section you should share with your audience how you went about collecting and analyzing your data

Should include:

• Participants: Who or what was in the study?
• Materials/ measurements: what did you measure?
• Procedures: How did you do the study?
• Data-analysis: What analysis were conducted? 

This section contains FACTS – with no opinion, commentary or interpretation. Graphs, charts and images can be used to display data in a clear and organized way.  

Keep in mind when making figures:

• Make sure axis, treatments, and data sets are clearly labeled
• Strive for simplicity, especially in figure titles. 
• Know when to use what kind of graph
• Be careful with colors.

Interpretation and commentary takes place here. This section should give a clear summary of your findings. 

You should:

• Address the positive and negative aspects of you research
• Discuss how and if your research question was answered. 
• Highlight the novel and important findings
• Speculate on what could be occurring in your system 

Future Research

• State your goals
• Include information about why you believe research should go in the direction you are proposing
• Discuss briefly how you plan to implement the research goals, if you chose to do so.  

Why include References?

• It allows viewers to locate the material that you used, and can help viewers expand their knowledge of your research topic.  
• Indicates that you have conducted a thorough review of the literature and conducted your research from an informed perspective.
• Guards you against intellectual theft.  Ideas are considered intellectual property failure to cite someone's ideas can have serious consequences. 

Acknowledgements

This section is used to thank the people, programs and funding agencies that allowed you to perform your research.

Questions 

Allow for about 2-3 minutes at the end of your presentation for questions. 

It is important to be prepared. 

• Know why you conducted the study
• Be prepared to answer questions about why you chose a specific methodology

If you DO NOT know the answer to a question

Visual Aids

PowerPoints and other visual aids can be used to support what you are presenting about.

Power Point Slides and other visual aids can help support your presentation, however there are some things you should consider: 

• Do not overdo it . One big mistake that presenters make is they have  a slide for every single item they want to say. One way you can avoid this is by writing your presentation in Word first, instead of making a Power Point Presentation. By doing this you can type exactly what you want to say, and once your presentation is complete, you can create Power Point slides that help support your presentation. ​

Formula for number of visual aids : Length of presentation divided by 2 plus 1

example: 12 minute presentation should have no more than 7 slides.

• Does it add interest? 
• Does it prove? 
• Does it clarify?
• Do not read the text . Most people can read, and if they have the option of reading material themselves versus listen to you read it, they are going to read it themselves and then your voice becomes an annoyance. Also, when you are reading the text you are probably not engaging with the audience. 
• No more than 4-6 lines on a slide and no more than 4-6 words in a line.
• People should be able to read your slide in 6 seconds.
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Chapter 15: Literary Analysis

Writing/presenting about literature, literature (fiction), demystifying the process.

Writing/Presenting an analysis of a piece of fiction can be a mystifying process. First, literary analyses (or papers that offer an interpretation of a story) rely on the assumption that stories must mean something. How does a story mean something? Isn’t a story just an arrangement of characters and events? And if the author wanted to convey a meaning, wouldn’t he or she be much better off writing an essay just telling us what he or she meant?

It’s pretty easy to see how at least some stories convey clear meanings or morals. Just think about a parable like the prodigal son or a nursery tale about “crying wolf.” Stories like these are reduced down to the bare elements, giving us just enough detail to lead us to their main points, and because they are relatively easy to understand and tend to stick in our memories, they’re often used in some kinds of education.

But if the meanings were always as clear as they are in parables, who would really need to write a paper analyzing them? Interpretations of fiction would not be interesting if the meanings of the stories were clear to everyone who reads them. Thankfully (or perhaps regrettably, depending on your perspective) the stories we’re asked to interpret in our classes are a good bit more complicated than most parables. They use characters, settings, and actions to illustrate issues that have no easy resolution. They show different sides of a problem, and they can raise new questions. In short, the stories we read in class have meanings that are arguable and complicated, and it’s our job to sort them out.

It might seem that the stories do have specific meanings, and the instructor has already decided what those meanings are. Not true. Instructors can be pretty dazzling (or mystifying) with their interpretations, but that’s because they have a lot of practice with stories and have developed a sense of the kinds of things to look for. Even so, the most well-informed professor rarely arrives at conclusions that someone else wouldn’t disagree with. In fact, most professors are aware that their interpretations are debatable and actually love a good argument. But let’s not go to the other extreme. To say that there is no one answer is not to say that anything we decide to say about a novel or short story is valid, interesting, or valuable. Interpretations of fiction are often opinions, but not all opinions are equal.

So what makes a valid and interesting opinion? A good interpretation of fiction will:

• avoid the obvious (in other words, it won’t argue a conclusion that most readers could reach on their own from a general knowledge of the story)
• support its main points with strong evidence from the story
• use careful reasoning to explain how that evidence relates to the main points of the interpretation.

The following steps are intended as a guide through the difficult process of writing an interpretive paper or giving a presentation that meets these criteria. Writing and presenting tends to be a highly individual task, so adapt these suggestions to fit your own habits and inclinations.

WRITING A PAPER/GIVING A PRESENTATION ON FICTION IN 9 STEPS

1. become familiar with the text..

There’s no substitute for a good general knowledge of your story. A good paper inevitably begins with the writer having a solid understanding of the work that he or she interprets. Being able to have the whole book, short story, or play in your head—at least in a general way—when you begin thinking through ideas will be a great help and will actually allow you to write the paper more quickly in the long run. It’s even a good idea to spend some time just thinking about the story. Flip back through the book and consider what interests you about this piece of writing—what seemed strange, new, or important?

2. Explore potential topics

Perhaps your instructor has given you a list of topics to choose, or perhaps you have been asked to create your own. Either way, you’ll need to generate ideas to use in the paper—even with an assigned topic, you’ll have to develop your own interpretation. Let’s assume for now that you are choosing your own topic.

After reading your story, a topic may just jump out at you, or you may have recognized a pattern or identified a problem that you’d like to think about in more detail. What is a pattern or a problem?

A pattern can be the recurrence of certain kinds of imagery or events. Usually, repetition of particular aspects of a story (similar events in the plot, similar descriptions, even repetition of particular words) tends to render those elements more conspicuous. Let’s say I’m writing a paper or giving a presentation on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. In the course of reading that book, I keep noticing the author’s use of biblical imagery: Victor Frankenstein anticipates that “a new species would bless me as its creator and source” (52) while the monster is not sure whether to consider himself as an Adam or a Satan. These details might help me interpret the way characters think about themselves and about each other, as well as allow me to infer what the author might have wanted her reader to think by using the Bible as a frame of reference. On another subject, I also notice that the book repeatedly refers to types of education. The story mentions books that its characters read and the different contexts in which learning takes place.

A problem, on the other hand, is something in the story that bugs you or that doesn’t seem to add up. A character might act in some way that’s unaccountable, a narrator may leave out what we think is important information (or may focus on something that seems trivial), or a narrator or character may offer an explanation that doesn’t seem to make sense to us. Not all problems lead in interesting directions, but some definitely do and even seem to be important parts of the story. In Frankenstein, Victor works day and night to achieve his goal of bringing life to the dead, but once he realizes his goal, he is immediately repulsed by his creation and runs away. Why? Is there something wrong with his creation, something wrong with his goal in the first place, or something wrong with Victor himself? The book doesn’t give us a clear answer but seems to invite us to interpret this problem.

If nothing immediately strikes you as interesting or no patterns or problems jump out at you, don’t worry. Just start making a list of whatever you remember from your reading, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you now. Consider a character’s peculiar behavior or comments, the unusual way the narrator describes an event, or the author’s placement of an action in an odd context. (Step 5 will cover some further elements of fiction that you might find useful at this stage as well.)

There’s a good chance that some of these intriguing moments and oddities will relate to other points in the story, eventually revealing some kind of pattern and giving you potential topics for your paper. Also keep in mind that if you found something peculiar in the story you’re writing or presenting about, chances are good that other people will have been perplexed by these moments in the story as well and will be interested to see how you make sense of it all. It’s even a good idea to test your ideas out on a friend, a classmate, or an instructor since talking about your ideas will help you develop them and push them beyond obvious interpretations of the story. And it’s only by pushing those ideas that you can write a paper that raises interesting issues or problems and that offers creative interpretations related to those issues.

3. Select a topic with a lot of evidence

If you’re selecting from a number of possible topics, narrow down your list by identifying how much evidence or how many specific details you could use to investigate each potential issue. Do this step just off the top of your head. Keep in mind that persuasive papers rely on ample evidence and that having a lot of details to choose from can also make your paper easier to write.

It might be helpful at this point to jot down all the events or elements of the story that have some bearing on the two or three topics that seem most promising. This can give you a more visual sense of how much evidence you will have to work with on each potential topic. It’s during this activity that having a good knowledge of your story will come in handy and save you a lot of time. Don’t launch into a topic without considering all the options first because you may end up with a topic that seemed promising initially but that only leads to a dead end.

4. Write out a working thesis

Based on the evidence that relates to your topic—and what you anticipate you might say about those pieces of evidence—come up with a working thesis. Don’t spend a lot of time composing this statement at this stage since it will probably change (and a changing thesis statement is a good sign that you’re starting to say more interesting and complex things on your subject). At this point in my Frankenstein project, I’ve become interested in ideas on education that seem to appear pretty regularly, and I have a general sense that aspects of Victor’s education lead to tragedy. Without considering things too deeply, I’ll just write something like “Victor Frankenstein’s tragic ambition was fueled by a faulty education.”

5. Make an extended list of evidence

Once you have a working topic in mind, skim back over the story and make a more comprehensive list of the details that relate to your point. For my paper about education in Frankenstein, I’ll want to take notes on what Victor Frankenstein reads at home, where he goes to school and why, what he studies at school, what others think about those studies, etc. And even though I’m primarily interested in Victor’s education, at this stage in the writing pr constructing a presentation, I’m also interested in moments of education in the novel that don’t directly involve this character. These other examples might provide a context or some useful contrasts that could illuminate my evidence relating to Victor. With this goal in mind, I’ll also take notes on how the monster educates himself, what he reads, and what he learns from those he watches. As you make your notes keep track of page numbers so you can quickly find the passages in your book again and so you can easily document quoted passages when you write without having to fish back through the book.

At this point, you want to include anything, anything, that might be useful, and you also want to avoid the temptation to arrive at definite conclusions about your topic. Remember that one of the qualities that makes for a good interpretation is that it avoids the obvious. You want to develop complex ideas, and the best way to do that is to keep your ideas flexible until you’ve considered the evidence carefully. A good gauge of complexity is whether you feel you understand more about your topic than you did when you began (and even just reaching a higher state of confusion is a good indicator that you’re treating your topic in a complex way).

When you jot down ideas, you can focus on the observations from the narrator or things that certain characters say or do. These elements are certainly important. It might help you come up with more evidence if you also take into account some of the broader components that go into making fiction, things like plot, point of view, character, setting, and symbols.

Plot is the string of events that go into the narrative. Think of this as the “who did what to whom” part of the story. Plots can be significant in themselves since chances are pretty good that some action in the story will relate to your main idea. For my paper on education in Frankenstein, I’m interested in Victor’s going to the University of Ingolstadt to realize his father’s wish that Victor attend school where he could learn about a another culture. Plots can also allow you to make connections between the story you’re interpreting and some other stories, and those connections might be useful in your interpretation. For example, the plot of Frankenstein, which involves a man who desires to bring life to the dead and creates a monster in the process, bears some similarity to the ancient Greek story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun on his wax wings. Both tell the story of a character who reaches too ambitiously after knowledge and suffers dire consequences.

Your plot could also have similarities to whole groups of other stories, all having conventional or easily recognizable plots. These types of stories are often called genres. Some popular genres include the gothic, the romance, the detective story, the bildungsroman (this is just a German term for a novel that is centered around the development of its main characters), and the novel of manners (a novel that focuses on the behavior and foibles of a particular class or social group). These categories are often helpful in characterizing a piece of writing or presentation, but this approach has its limitations. Many novels don’t fit nicely into one genre, and others seem to borrow a bit from a variety of different categories. For example, given my working thesis on education, I am more interested in Victor’s development than in relating Frankenstein to the gothic genre, so I might decide to treat the novel as a bildungsroman.

And just to complicate matters that much more, genre can sometimes take into account not only the type of plot but the form the novelist uses to convey that plot. A story might be told in a series of letters (this is called an epistolary form), in a sequence of journal entries, or in a combination of forms (Frankenstein is actually told as a journal included within a letter).

These matters of form also introduce questions of point of view, that is, who is telling the story and what do they or don’t they know. Is the tale told by an omniscient or all-knowing narrator who doesn’t interact in the events, or is it presented by one of the characters within the story? Can the reader trust that person to give an objective account, or does that narrator color the story with his or her own biases and interests?

Character refers to the qualities assigned to the individual figures in the plot. Consider why the author assigns certain qualities to a character or characters and how any such qualities might relate to your topic. For example, a discussion of Victor Frankenstein’s education might take into account aspects of his character that appear to be developed (or underdeveloped) by the particular kind of education he undertakes. Victor tends to be ambitious, even compulsive about his studies, and I might be able to argue that his tendency to be extravagant leads him to devote his own education to writers who asserted grand, if questionable, conclusions.

Setting is the environment in which all of the actions take place. What is the time period, the location, the time of day, the season, the weather, the type of room or building? What is the general mood, and who is present? All of these elements can reflect on the story’s events, and though the setting of a story tends to be less conspicuous than plot and character, setting still colors everything that’s said and done within its context. If Victor Frankenstein does all of his experiments in “a solitary chamber, or rather a cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a staircase” (53) we might conclude that there is something anti-social, isolated, and stale, maybe even unnatural about his project and his way of learning.

Obviously, if you consider all of these elements, you’ll probably have too much evidence to fit effectively into one paper. Your goal is merely to consider each of these aspects of fiction and include only those that are most relevant to your topic and most interesting to your reader. A good interpretive paper does not need to cover all elements of the story—plot, genre, narrative form, character, and setting. In fact, a paper that did try to say something about all of these elements would be unfocused. You might find that most of your topic could be supported by a consideration of character alone. That’s fine. For my Frankenstein paper, I’m finding that my evidence largely has to do with the setting, evidence that could lead to some interesting conclusions that my reader probably hasn’t recognized on his or her own.

6. Select your evidence

Once you’ve made your expanded list of evidence, decide which supporting details are the strongest. First, select the facts which bear the closest relation to your thesis statement. Second, choose the pieces of evidence you’ll be able to say the most about. Readers tend to be more dazzled with your interpretations of evidence than with a lot of quotes from the book. It would be useful to refer to Victor Frankenstein’s youthful reading in alchemy, but my reader will be more impressed by some analysis of how the writings of the alchemists—who pursued magical principles of chemistry and physics—reflect the ambition of his own goals. Select the details that will allow you to show off your own reasoning skills and allow you to help the reader see the story in a way he or she may not have seen it before.

7. Refine your thesis

Now it’s time to go back to your working thesis and refine it so that it reflects your new understanding of your topic. This step and the previous step (selecting evidence) are actually best done at the same time, since selecting your evidence and defining the focus of your paper depend upon each other. Don’t forget to consider the scope of your project: how long is the paper supposed to be, and what can you reasonably cover in a paper of that length? In rethinking the issue of education in Frankenstein, I realize that I can narrow my topic in a number of ways: I could focus on education and culture (Victor’s education abroad), education in the sciences as opposed to the humanities (the monster reads Milton, Goethe, and Plutarch), or differences in learning environments (e.g. independent study, university study, family reading). Since I think I found some interesting evidence in the settings that I can interpret in a way that will get my reader’s attention, I’ll take this last option and refine my working thesis about Victor’s faulty education to something like this: “Victor Frankenstein’s education in unnaturally isolated environments fosters his tragic ambition.”

8. Organize your evidence

Once you have a clear thesis you can go back to your list of selected evidence and group all the similar details together. The ideas that tie these clusters of evidence together can then become the claims that you’ll make in your paper. As you begin thinking about what claims you can make (i.e. what kinds of conclusion you can come to) keep in mind that they should not only relate to all the evidence but also clearly support your thesis. Once you’re satisfied with the way you’ve grouped your evidence and with the way that your claims relate to your thesis, you can begin to consider the most logical way to organize each of those claims. To support my thesis about Frankenstein, I’ve decided to group my evidence chronologically. I’ll start with Victor’s education at home, then discuss his learning at the University, and finally address his own experiments. This arrangement will let me show that Victor was always prone to isolation in his education and that this tendency gets stronger as he becomes more ambitious.

There are certainly other organizational options that might work better depending on the type of points I want to stress. I could organize a discussion of education by the various forms of education found in the novel (for example, education through reading, through classrooms, and through observation), by specific characters (education for Victor, the monster, and Victor’s bride, Elizabeth), or by the effects of various types of education (those with harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects).

9. Interpret your evidence

Avoid the temptation to load your paper with evidence from your story. Each time you use a specific reference to your story, be sure to explain the significance of that evidence in your own words. To get your readers’ interest, you need to draw their attention to elements of the story that they wouldn’t necessarily notice or understand on their own. If you’re quoting passages without interpreting them, you’re not demonstrating your reasoning skills or helping the reader. In most cases, interpreting your evidence merely involves putting into your paper what is already in your head. Remember that we, as readers, are lazy—all of us. We don’t want to have to figure out a writer’s reasoning for ourselves; we want all the thinking to be done for us in the paper.

GENERAL HINTS

The previous nine steps are intended to give you a sense of the tasks usually involved in writing a good interpretive paper or presentation. What follows are just some additional hints that might help you find an interesting topic and maybe even make the process a little more enjoyable.

1. Make your thesis relevant to your readers

You’ll be able to keep your readers’ attention more easily if you pick a topic that relates to daily experience. Avoid writing a paper or giving a presentation that identifies a pattern in a story but doesn’t quite explain why that pattern leads to an interesting interpretation. Identifying the biblical references in Frankenstein might provide a good start to a paper—Mary Shelley does use a lot of biblical allusions—but a good paper must also tell the reader why those references are meaningful. So what makes an interesting paper topic? Simply put, it has to address issues that we can use in our own lives. Your thesis should be able to answer the brutal question “So what?” Does your paper tell your reader something relevant about the context of the story you’re interpreting or about the human condition?

Some categories, like race, gender, and social class, are dependable sources of interest. This is not to say that all good papers necessarily deal with one of these issues. My thesis on education in Frankenstein does not. But a lot of readers would probably be less interested in reading a paper that traces the instances of water imagery than in reading a paper that compares male or female stereotypes used in a story or that takes a close look at relationships between characters of different races. Again, don’t feel compelled to write on race, gender, or class. The main idea is that you ask yourself whether the topic you’ve selected connects with a major human concern, and there are a lot of options here (for example, issues that relate to economics, family dynamics, education, religion, law, politics, sexuality, history, and psychology, among others).

Also, don’t assume that as long as you address one of these issues, your paper will be interesting. As mentioned in step 2, you need to address these big topics in a complex way. Doing this requires that you don’t go into a topic with a preconceived notion of what you’ll find. Be prepared to challenge your own ideas about what gender, race, or class mean in a particular text.

2. Select a topic of interest to you

Though you may feel like you have to select a topic that sounds like something your instructor would be interested in, don’t overlook the fact that you’ll be more invested in your paper and probably get more out of it if you make the topic something pertinent to yourself. Pick a topic that might allow you to learn about yourself and what you find important.

Of course, your topic can’t entirely be of your choosing. We’re always at the mercy of the evidence that’s available to us. For example, your interest may really be in political issues, but if you’re reading Frankenstein, you might face some difficulties in finding enough evidence to make a good paper on that kind of topic. If, on the other hand, you’re interested in ethics, philosophy, science, psychology, religion, or even geography, you’ll probably have more than enough to write about and find yourself in the good position of having to select only the best pieces of evidence.

3. Make your thesis specific

The effort to be more specific almost always leads to a thesis that will get your reader’s attention, and it also separates you from the crowd as someone who challenges ideas and looks into topics more deeply. A paper about education in general in Frankenstein will probably not get my reader’s attention as much as a more specific topic about the impact of the learning environment on the main character. My readers may have already thought to some extent about ideas of education in the novel, if they have read it, but the chance that they have thought through something more specific like the educational environment is slimmer.

WORKS CONSULTED

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus. New York: Signet, 1965.

Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Writing About Literature. 9th ed. New York: Longman, 2003.

• Literature (Fiction). Provided by : UNC College of Arts and Sciences Writing Center. Located at : http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/literature-fiction/ . License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

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8 Tips for a Literature Review Presentation

by Caleb Youngwerth

Literature reviews for research are very different from any other presentation you may have done before, so prepare to relearn how to present. The goals of research literature reviews are different, the style is different, even the pacing is different. Even if you have previously done a literature review in an academic setting, you will still want to know these tips. I found this out the hard way, so you don’t have to. Also, to clarify, these tips are meant for a literature review of a topic, not a singular study or paper, though many of the tips do apply to both.

1. Highlight current research

The point of a literature review for research is to highlight the current state of research related to your topic, not to simply give background information. Background information is important and should be included, but the focus of the presentation should be showing some current studies that either confirm or challenge the topic you are studying. As much as textbooks from 30 years ago might seem to have all the information you need for your presentation, a research study from this decade does a far better job representing the current state of the topic, which is the end goal of the presentation. Also, since the new research should be the focal point of the presentation, as a general piece of advice, try to give each research study a minimum of one full slide, so you can give a fuller picture of what the study actually concluded and how they reached their conclusion.

2. Alternate old and new

The best way to keep people listening to your presentation is to vary what you include in your presentation. Rather than trying to give all of the background information first and then showcase all the flashy new research, try to use the two interchangeably. Organize the presentation by idea and give all the background needed for the idea, then develop the idea further by using the new research studies to help illustrate your point. By doing this, you not only avoid having to backtrack and reteach the background for each and every new study, but also help keep the presentation interesting for the audience. This method also helps the audience avoid being overwhelmed since only a little bit of new information is introduced at a time. Obviously, you may need to include a brief introductory section that contains nothing but textbook information that is absolutely necessary to understand anything about the topic, but the more varied the presentation, the better.

3. Use complete sentences

Every presentation class up to this point probably has taught you that slides with full sentences are harmful to your presentation because it is distracting to the listener. Unlearn all that information for this style of presentation. Bullet points are still good, but you should have complete ideas (which usually means complete sentences) for every single point. If someone would be able to read your slides and not hear you, and still be able to understand most of your presentation, your literature review is perfect in a research setting. The point of this presentation is to share all the new information you have learned, so hiding it is helping no one. You still do not want to be reading your slides verbatim and can absolutely add information beyond the slides, but all your main ideas should be on the slides.

4. Read smart

I will admit that I stole this tip from Rosy, but it is a very good tip, so I decided to include it. When you read, you want to read as much as you can, but wasting time reading an irrelevant research study is helping no one. When finding a new study, read the abstract, then the conclusion, then the pictures. If it looks like a good study from those three parts, or you personally find it interesting, you then can go over the actual paper and read it, but by reading the less dense parts first, you can get a general idea of the study without actually having to take a lot of time to read the entire paper. Though textbooks and review papers generally are a little more difficult to read using this method, you can still look at the introduction, pictures, and conclusion and save time reading the rest if the source ends up not being interesting or important.

5. Reading is good for you

As much as you want to read smart when you can, the more you read, the more knowledgeable you become. The goal of the presentation is to become an expert on you topic, so the only way you can do that is by reading as much as you can. You should read more information than you present, since many sources you read probably will not fit in a time-constrained presentation. As Rosy likes to say, in anything research, only about 10% of what you know should actually be shared with the world. By reading more, you are better-suited to answer questions, and you also just generally are able to understand what you are studying better because, chances are, the main purpose of this presentation for you is to help you better understand your research. If something looks interesting and is vaguely related to your topic, read it; it will be beneficial to you, even if you do not end up presenting the information.

6. Let pictures talk for you

When reading research papers, the pictures are usually the best part. Your presentation should be the same way. The best way to be able to show the concept you are trying to explain is to literally show it. The best way to show the results of a research study is usually by showing a graph or infographic, so if the paper has a graph that shows the results, you should absolutely use it. Charts, diagrams, and even videos can also help illustrate a piece of background information that might be difficult to put into words. That being said, you should know and be able to explain every single part of the graphic. Otherwise, it loses meaning and makes the audience even more confused. Captions can and should be used to help explain the graphic, not only to remind you, but also let your audience know what the general idea of the graphic is. Since they keep slides interesting, you should probably have some sort of picture on every slide, otherwise the slides will be not only bland, but also likely less informative.

7. Avoid overcrowded slides

Just because you should have a lot of information in your presentation does not mean that your slides need to show that. In fact, a slide with too much information will only harm your presentation since your audience will be distracted trying to read all of a long slide while you are trying to explain it. Doing anything to make slides less dense will help avoid having the audience focused on the slide, so they focus on you more. Transitions that only show one point at a time or wait to reveal an image can be helpful in breaking up an overcrowded slide. Also, simply adding more slides can help since it accomplishes the purpose of putting less information on your slides while still keeping the exact same amount of information. You still want to share as much information as you can with the audience, but overcrowded slides do not accomplish this purpose.

8. Expect questions

Another thing that might be slightly different about a research presentation is questions. Most presentations have the question section after the presenter has finished. Research presentations are different because they allow for questions during the presentation (assuming it is a presentation to a small group). If you get any questions in the middle of the presentation, it is not someone being rude, but simply a fellow researcher who is legitimately curious about your topic. Of course, there will be a question period after the presentation, but you may be asked questions during the presentation. If you read enough information on the topic, you should be able to answer any question easily, but if the question is completely unrelated to anything you read, then it is perfectly reasonable to answer that you did not research the specific area in question. Overall, the questions related to your presentation should not be your biggest worry, but you should definitely be ready.

These are not all the rules for a literature review presentation nor are they set in stone. These are just some tips that I was told or learned that were the most helpful for me, so I hope they will help you too. I had to rewrite my presentation entirely my first literature review because I did not understand some of these differences, so if you give the presentation when you are scheduled to go, you are already better off than I was. Also, do not be afraid to ask anyone in the research group, even Rosy, if you need help. Chances are everyone in the group has given a literature review presentation at some point, so we would be more than happy to help you if you are confused about something. That being said, we are not experts on your topic, so specific questions about organization and content are going to have to be figured out by yourself. Either way, no matter what you do, do not stress out about this presentation. The goal of the presentation is mostly just to help improve your knowledge on a topic, and the presentation is simply to share with the group some of the information you have learned. Best of luck with the presentation, and I hope these tips help clear up what exactly the goal of a literature review presentation in a research setting is.

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Open Access

Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America

• Kristen M. Naegle

Published: December 2, 2021

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554
• Reader Comments

Citation: Naegle KM (2021) Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides. PLoS Comput Biol 17(12): e1009554. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554

Copyright: © 2021 Kristen M. Naegle. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The author has declared no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The “presentation slide” is the building block of all academic presentations, whether they are journal clubs, thesis committee meetings, short conference talks, or hour-long seminars. A slide is a single page projected on a screen, usually built on the premise of a title, body, and figures or tables and includes both what is shown and what is spoken about that slide. Multiple slides are strung together to tell the larger story of the presentation. While there have been excellent 10 simple rules on giving entire presentations [ 1 , 2 ], there was an absence in the fine details of how to design a slide for optimal effect—such as the design elements that allow slides to convey meaningful information, to keep the audience engaged and informed, and to deliver the information intended and in the time frame allowed. As all research presentations seek to teach, effective slide design borrows from the same principles as effective teaching, including the consideration of cognitive processing your audience is relying on to organize, process, and retain information. This is written for anyone who needs to prepare slides from any length scale and for most purposes of conveying research to broad audiences. The rules are broken into 3 primary areas. Rules 1 to 5 are about optimizing the scope of each slide. Rules 6 to 8 are about principles around designing elements of the slide. Rules 9 to 10 are about preparing for your presentation, with the slides as the central focus of that preparation.

Rule 1: Include only one idea per slide

Each slide should have one central objective to deliver—the main idea or question [ 3 – 5 ]. Often, this means breaking complex ideas down into manageable pieces (see Fig 1 , where “background” information has been split into 2 key concepts). In another example, if you are presenting a complex computational approach in a large flow diagram, introduce it in smaller units, building it up until you finish with the entire diagram. The progressive buildup of complex information means that audiences are prepared to understand the whole picture, once you have dedicated time to each of the parts. You can accomplish the buildup of components in several ways—for example, using presentation software to cover/uncover information. Personally, I choose to create separate slides for each piece of information content I introduce—where the final slide has the entire diagram, and I use cropping or a cover on duplicated slides that come before to hide what I’m not yet ready to include. I use this method in order to ensure that each slide in my deck truly presents one specific idea (the new content) and the amount of the new information on that slide can be described in 1 minute (Rule 2), but it comes with the trade-off—a change to the format of one of the slides in the series often means changes to all slides.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

Top left: A background slide that describes the background material on a project from my lab. The slide was created using a PowerPoint Design Template, which had to be modified to increase default text sizes for this figure (i.e., the default text sizes are even worse than shown here). Bottom row: The 2 new slides that break up the content into 2 explicit ideas about the background, using a central graphic. In the first slide, the graphic is an explicit example of the SH2 domain of PI3-kinase interacting with a phosphorylation site (Y754) on the PDGFR to describe the important details of what an SH2 domain and phosphotyrosine ligand are and how they interact. I use that same graphic in the second slide to generalize all binding events and include redundant text to drive home the central message (a lot of possible interactions might occur in the human proteome, more than we can currently measure). Top right highlights which rules were used to move from the original slide to the new slide. Specific changes as highlighted by Rule 7 include increasing contrast by changing the background color, increasing font size, changing to sans serif fonts, and removing all capital text and underlining (using bold to draw attention). PDGFR, platelet-derived growth factor receptor.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554.g001

Rule 2: Spend only 1 minute per slide

When you present your slide in the talk, it should take 1 minute or less to discuss. This rule is really helpful for planning purposes—a 20-minute presentation should have somewhere around 20 slides. Also, frequently giving your audience new information to feast on helps keep them engaged. During practice, if you find yourself spending more than a minute on a slide, there’s too much for that one slide—it’s time to break up the content into multiple slides or even remove information that is not wholly central to the story you are trying to tell. Reduce, reduce, reduce, until you get to a single message, clearly described, which takes less than 1 minute to present.

Rule 3: Make use of your heading

When each slide conveys only one message, use the heading of that slide to write exactly the message you are trying to deliver. Instead of titling the slide “Results,” try “CTNND1 is central to metastasis” or “False-positive rates are highly sample specific.” Use this landmark signpost to ensure that all the content on that slide is related exactly to the heading and only the heading. Think of the slide heading as the introductory or concluding sentence of a paragraph and the slide content the rest of the paragraph that supports the main point of the paragraph. An audience member should be able to follow along with you in the “paragraph” and come to the same conclusion sentence as your header at the end of the slide.

Rule 4: Include only essential points

While you are speaking, audience members’ eyes and minds will be wandering over your slide. If you have a comment, detail, or figure on a slide, have a plan to explicitly identify and talk about it. If you don’t think it’s important enough to spend time on, then don’t have it on your slide. This is especially important when faculty are present. I often tell students that thesis committee members are like cats: If you put a shiny bauble in front of them, they’ll go after it. Be sure to only put the shiny baubles on slides that you want them to focus on. Putting together a thesis meeting for only faculty is really an exercise in herding cats (if you have cats, you know this is no easy feat). Clear and concise slide design will go a long way in helping you corral those easily distracted faculty members.

Rule 5: Give credit, where credit is due

An exception to Rule 4 is to include proper citations or references to work on your slide. When adding citations, names of other researchers, or other types of credit, use a consistent style and method for adding this information to your slides. Your audience will then be able to easily partition this information from the other content. A common mistake people make is to think “I’ll add that reference later,” but I highly recommend you put the proper reference on the slide at the time you make it, before you forget where it came from. Finally, in certain kinds of presentations, credits can make it clear who did the work. For the faculty members heading labs, it is an effective way to connect your audience with the personnel in the lab who did the work, which is a great career booster for that person. For graduate students, it is an effective way to delineate your contribution to the work, especially in meetings where the goal is to establish your credentials for meeting the rigors of a PhD checkpoint.

Rule 6: Use graphics effectively

As a rule, you should almost never have slides that only contain text. Build your slides around good visualizations. It is a visual presentation after all, and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, on the flip side, don’t muddy the point of the slide by putting too many complex graphics on a single slide. A multipanel figure that you might include in a manuscript should often be broken into 1 panel per slide (see Rule 1 ). One way to ensure that you use the graphics effectively is to make a point to introduce the figure and its elements to the audience verbally, especially for data figures. For example, you might say the following: “This graph here shows the measured false-positive rate for an experiment and each point is a replicate of the experiment, the graph demonstrates …” If you have put too much on one slide to present in 1 minute (see Rule 2 ), then the complexity or number of the visualizations is too much for just one slide.

Rule 7: Design to avoid cognitive overload

The type of slide elements, the number of them, and how you present them all impact the ability for the audience to intake, organize, and remember the content. For example, a frequent mistake in slide design is to include full sentences, but reading and verbal processing use the same cognitive channels—therefore, an audience member can either read the slide, listen to you, or do some part of both (each poorly), as a result of cognitive overload [ 4 ]. The visual channel is separate, allowing images/videos to be processed with auditory information without cognitive overload [ 6 ] (Rule 6). As presentations are an exercise in listening, and not reading, do what you can to optimize the ability of the audience to listen. Use words sparingly as “guide posts” to you and the audience about major points of the slide. In fact, you can add short text fragments, redundant with the verbal component of the presentation, which has been shown to improve retention [ 7 ] (see Fig 1 for an example of redundant text that avoids cognitive overload). Be careful in the selection of a slide template to minimize accidentally adding elements that the audience must process, but are unimportant. David JP Phillips argues (and effectively demonstrates in his TEDx talk [ 5 ]) that the human brain can easily interpret 6 elements and more than that requires a 500% increase in human cognition load—so keep the total number of elements on the slide to 6 or less. Finally, in addition to the use of short text, white space, and the effective use of graphics/images, you can improve ease of cognitive processing further by considering color choices and font type and size. Here are a few suggestions for improving the experience for your audience, highlighting the importance of these elements for some specific groups:

• Use high contrast colors and simple backgrounds with low to no color—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment.
• Use sans serif fonts and large font sizes (including figure legends), avoid italics, underlining (use bold font instead for emphasis), and all capital letters—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment [ 8 ].
• Use color combinations and palettes that can be understood by those with different forms of color blindness [ 9 ]. There are excellent tools available to identify colors to use and ways to simulate your presentation or figures as they might be seen by a person with color blindness (easily found by a web search).
• In this increasing world of virtual presentation tools, consider practicing your talk with a closed captioning system capture your words. Use this to identify how to improve your speaking pace, volume, and annunciation to improve understanding by all members of your audience, but especially those with a hearing impairment.

Rule 8: Design the slide so that a distracted person gets the main takeaway

It is very difficult to stay focused on a presentation, especially if it is long or if it is part of a longer series of talks at a conference. Audience members may get distracted by an important email, or they may start dreaming of lunch. So, it’s important to look at your slide and ask “If they heard nothing I said, will they understand the key concept of this slide?” The other rules are set up to help with this, including clarity of the single point of the slide (Rule 1), titling it with a major conclusion (Rule 3), and the use of figures (Rule 6) and short text redundant to your verbal description (Rule 7). However, with each slide, step back and ask whether its main conclusion is conveyed, even if someone didn’t hear your accompanying dialog. Importantly, ask if the information on the slide is at the right level of abstraction. For example, do you have too many details about the experiment, which hides the conclusion of the experiment (i.e., breaking Rule 1)? If you are worried about not having enough details, keep a slide at the end of your slide deck (after your conclusions and acknowledgments) with the more detailed information that you can refer to during a question and answer period.

Rule 9: Iteratively improve slide design through practice

Well-designed slides that follow the first 8 rules are intended to help you deliver the message you intend and in the amount of time you intend to deliver it in. The best way to ensure that you nailed slide design for your presentation is to practice, typically a lot. The most important aspects of practicing a new presentation, with an eye toward slide design, are the following 2 key points: (1) practice to ensure that you hit, each time through, the most important points (for example, the text guide posts you left yourself and the title of the slide); and (2) practice to ensure that as you conclude the end of one slide, it leads directly to the next slide. Slide transitions, what you say as you end one slide and begin the next, are important to keeping the flow of the “story.” Practice is when I discover that the order of my presentation is poor or that I left myself too few guideposts to remember what was coming next. Additionally, during practice, the most frequent things I have to improve relate to Rule 2 (the slide takes too long to present, usually because I broke Rule 1, and I’m delivering too much information for one slide), Rule 4 (I have a nonessential detail on the slide), and Rule 5 (I forgot to give a key reference). The very best type of practice is in front of an audience (for example, your lab or peers), where, with fresh perspectives, they can help you identify places for improving slide content, design, and connections across the entirety of your talk.

Rule 10: Design to mitigate the impact of technical disasters

The real presentation almost never goes as we planned in our heads or during our practice. Maybe the speaker before you went over time and now you need to adjust. Maybe the computer the organizer is having you use won’t show your video. Maybe your internet is poor on the day you are giving a virtual presentation at a conference. Technical problems are routinely part of the practice of sharing your work through presentations. Hence, you can design your slides to limit the impact certain kinds of technical disasters create and also prepare alternate approaches. Here are just a few examples of the preparation you can do that will take you a long way toward avoiding a complete fiasco:

• Save your presentation as a PDF—if the version of Keynote or PowerPoint on a host computer cause issues, you still have a functional copy that has a higher guarantee of compatibility.
• In using videos, create a backup slide with screen shots of key results. For example, if I have a video of cell migration, I’ll be sure to have a copy of the start and end of the video, in case the video doesn’t play. Even if the video worked, you can pause on this backup slide and take the time to highlight the key results in words if someone could not see or understand the video.
• Avoid animations, such as figures or text that flash/fly-in/etc. Surveys suggest that no one likes movement in presentations [ 3 , 4 ]. There is likely a cognitive underpinning to the almost universal distaste of pointless animations that relates to the idea proposed by Kosslyn and colleagues that animations are salient perceptual units that captures direct attention [ 4 ]. Although perceptual salience can be used to draw attention to and improve retention of specific points, if you use this approach for unnecessary/unimportant things (like animation of your bullet point text, fly-ins of figures, etc.), then you will distract your audience from the important content. Finally, animations cause additional processing burdens for people with visual impairments [ 10 ] and create opportunities for technical disasters if the software on the host system is not compatible with your planned animation.

Conclusions

These rules are just a start in creating more engaging presentations that increase audience retention of your material. However, there are wonderful resources on continuing on the journey of becoming an amazing public speaker, which includes understanding the psychology and neuroscience behind human perception and learning. For example, as highlighted in Rule 7, David JP Phillips has a wonderful TEDx talk on the subject [ 5 ], and “PowerPoint presentation flaws and failures: A psychological analysis,” by Kosslyn and colleagues is deeply detailed about a number of aspects of human cognition and presentation style [ 4 ]. There are many books on the topic, including the popular “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds [ 11 ]. Finally, although briefly touched on here, the visualization of data is an entire topic of its own that is worth perfecting for both written and oral presentations of work, with fantastic resources like Edward Tufte’s “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” [ 12 ] or the article “Visualization of Biomedical Data” by O’Donoghue and colleagues [ 13 ].

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the countless presenters, colleagues, students, and mentors from which I have learned a great deal from on effective presentations. Also, a thank you to the wonderful resources published by organizations on how to increase inclusivity. A special thanks to Dr. Jason Papin and Dr. Michael Guertin on early feedback of this editorial.

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• 3. Teaching VUC for Making Better PowerPoint Presentations. n.d. Available from: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/making-better-powerpoint-presentations/#baddeley .
• 8. Creating a dyslexia friendly workplace. Dyslexia friendly style guide. nd. Available from: https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/employers/creating-a-dyslexia-friendly-workplace/dyslexia-friendly-style-guide .
• 9. Cravit R. How to Use Color Blind Friendly Palettes to Make Your Charts Accessible. 2019. Available from: https://venngage.com/blog/color-blind-friendly-palette/ .
• 10. Making your conference presentation more accessible to blind and partially sighted people. n.d. Available from: https://vocaleyes.co.uk/services/resources/guidelines-for-making-your-conference-presentation-more-accessible-to-blind-and-partially-sighted-people/ .
• 11. Reynolds G. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. 2nd ed. New Riders Pub; 2011.
• 12. Tufte ER. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2nd ed. Graphics Press; 2001.

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Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

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Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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1.1: What is Literature?

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• Page ID 40366

• Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
• City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

Defining Literature

In order for us to study literature with any kind of depth, first we must decide what constitutes literature. While works like William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird are almost universally accepted as literature, other works are hotly debated, or included or excluded based on the context. For example, while most consider Toni Morrison’s Beloved literature, others debate whether more recent publications such as David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas or Rupi Kaur’s Instagram poetry constitute literature. And what about the stories told through tweets, like Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box” ? What about video games, like Skyrim , or memes, like Grumpy Cat?

Students often throw their hands up in the air over such distinctions, arguing literature is subjective. Isn't it up to individual opinion? Anything can be literature, such students argue. At first glance, it could seem such distinctions are, at best, arbitrary. At worst, such definitions function as a means of enforcing cultural erasure.

However, consider a story about Kim Kardashian’s plastic surgery in People Magazine . Can this be considered on the same level of literary achievement as Hamlet ? Most would concede there is a difference in quality between these two texts. A blurb about Kim Kardashian’s latest plastic surgery, most would agree, does not constitute literature. So how can we differentiate between such works?

Literature vs. literature

As illustrated in the somewhat silly example above, one way we can define what constitutes literature is by identifying what is definitely not literature. For our intents and purposes of defining most terms in this textbook, we will use the Oxford English Dictionary ’s definitions. Many professors who teach Literature use the concept of Big L Literature vs. little l literature (Rollison).

While the definition of little l literature is fairly easy to understand and apply, the definition of Big L Literature remains amorphous. What makes a work “artistic”? How do we define “superior” or “lasting”?

Let’s break down some of the defining qualities of literature in a bit more detail, starting with the word “artistic.”

Exercise 1.1.1

Consider the following works of art. Which of these images do you feel is higher quality or more “artistic”? Which is lower-quality or less artistic? Why? Justify your position by analyzing the elements of each artwork.

While there may be some debate, most students usually respond that Friedrich's painting is more artistic. This is due to several composition differences between the two works:

• Artist’s skill: it certainly appears as if the first image was produced by an artist with superior skill
• Fame: for anyone who knows art history, the first image is famous while the other is not
• Lasting quality: the first image has survived the test of time, remaining popular over two hundred years!
• Meaning: the first image likely conjures deeper feelings, themes, or ideas, such as isolation and the primacy of nature. This is why this image has become the face of Romanticism.

But what about the images demonstrate the artists’ superior skills? While the second image appears to be produced with a simple doodle, and quickly composed, the first indicates more complexity, attention-to-detail, and craft. Freidrich leverages different colors, textures, shapes, and symbols to evoke a feeling in the viewer. Skilled artists will use different techniques, like the way they move the paintbrush, the pressure they exert or the direction of the brush. They will use textured paintbrushes for a specific effect, such as the difference between the light fluffy clouds and dark mountain rocks. They will use different color pallets to project, as accurately as possible, the feelings they are trying to evoke. In short, while anyone can paint, true artists leverage many different skills, techniques, and materials to render what is in their imagination into a real-life product.

So how does this relate to our attempts to define literature?

Literature is art, but with words.

While the artist uses different colors, paintbrushes, mediums, canvases, and techniques, the writer uses different genres and literary techniques called literary devices . Just like different types of paint, paintbrushes, and artistic tools, there are literally hundreds of literary devices, but some of the most common are metaphor, simile, personification, and imagery. Genre is the type or style of literature. Each genre has its own conventions. Literary genres include creative nonfiction, fiction, drama, and poetry . Works that are literary tend to masterfully use genre conventions and literary devices to create a world in the mind of the reader. Works that are less literary tend to be for practical and/or entertainment purposes, and the writer dedicates less focused energy towards artfully employing literary devices.

However, just because a work is not as literary as another does not mean it cannot be enjoyed. Just like a stick figure or cartoon character might be perfectly fine if intended for a particular audience or purpose, readers can still enjoy People Magazine even though it is not of the same literary quality as Hamlet .

So, to use an example from earlier:

While some literature falls into clear designations of literature or not literature, most works are open to debate. Given the sometimes difficult task of determining whether a work falls into one camp or the other, it may be more helpful to think of Literature less as a dichotomy than a spectrum, with popular magazines on one end and works like Hamlet and Beloved on the other, and most written works falling somewhere between the two extremes.

The Literary Spectrum

This spectrum can be a helpful way to think about literature because it provides a more open-ended way to discuss writing as art than simply labeling works as literary or not. After viewing the above chart, why do you think popular magazines and a Calculus textbook are considered "less literary"? In terms of popular magazines, they do not fit the definition of literature as "lasting" in the sense that they usually fade from relevancy quickly after publication. Additionally, the authors of such magazines are striving for quick entertainment rather than leaving a meaningful impression on the reader. They tend not to use literary devices, such as metaphor, in a masterful way. On the other end, Shakespeare's Hamlet definitely fits the definition of "lasting," in that it has survived hundreds of years. It is full of literary devices used for rhetorical effect and, one would argue, it touches upon deep themes such as death, the afterlife, murder, vengeance, and love, rather than trifling issues such as a starlet's most recent plastic surgery.

Certainly, works of literature are up for debate: that is the quintessential question literary scholars might ask. What makes certain literary works survive the test of time? What makes a story, poem, or drama "good"? While literary scholars are less interested in proving a certain work is "good" or not -- and more focused on analyzing the ways to illuminate a given work -- it can be helpful for you to consider what kinds of literature you like and why you like it. What about the way it was written causes you to feel the way you do about it?

Who Decides What is Literature?

Now that we have at least somewhat clarified the definition of literature, who decides what works are or are not literature? Historically speaking, kings, queens, publishers, literary critics, professors, colleges, and readers (like you!) have decided which works survive and which works do not.

Aristotle was one of the first writers to attempt to decide what works fall into the category of literature, and what works do not. While Aristotle was most famous for his contributions to science and philosophy, he is also considered one of the first literary critics. A literary critic is a person who studies and analyzes literature. A literary critic produces scholarship called literary criticism . An example of this would be Aristotle’s Poetics , in which he identifies the defining qualities of a “good” Tragedy. Aristotle’s analysis of Tragedy was so influential that it is still used today, over two thousand years later!

When a work is officially decided to constitute literature, it enters something called the Canon. Not to be confused with the large metal tube that shoots bombs popular in the 16th through the 19th centuries (cannon), the Literary Canon is a collection of works that are considered by the powers that be to constitute literature. A work that falls into this designation is called canonical. So, to use an example from Aristotle’s Poetics , Aristotle defined Sophocles’ Oedipus Trilogy as the pinnacle of the Tragic Genre. From there, in part due to Aristotle's influence, Greek society valued Oedipus so much that they kept discussing, reading, referencing, and teaching it. Thus, it became a kind of shining example of the Tragic Canon, one which has lasted thousands of years and continues to be read and lauded to this day. Other tragedies, fairly or not, are often judged on their quality in comparison to Sophocles' works. Wild to think that someone who died thousands of years ago still influences what we consider literature today!

Memes and Video Games: Today's Literature?

All this talk of thousands-of-years-old texts might seem out of touch. A lot of people think "old and boring" and literature are synonymous. Students are often surprised to hear that comic books and video games can arguably be considered literature, too. There are plenty of arguments to be made that comic books, such as Maus by Art Spiegalman (1991) or Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (2006) are literature. Cutting edge literary scholars argue video games like Kentucky Route Zero by Cardboard Computer (2015) can be considered literary. There is also literature that is published in tweets, like Jennifer Egan's "Black Box" (2012). Some might even consider memes literature!

Generative question: do you think memes can be literary?

A meme is an image or video containing cultural values or ideas, often represented through allusion (implied reference to another work, without naming that work or its author). Memes can spread rapidly spreads through social media. Why? Because the best ones are #relatable; that is, they speak to a common human experience.

Usually memes take the form of text superimposed on an image. For example, the meme above conveys the dramatic reaction students sometimes give when I assign an essay. This is done primarily through a literary device called hyperbole , or exaggeration for rhetorical effect. It conveys its message comically through certain conventions that come along with the meme genre, such as the syntactic structure "me, a [insert noun]" and asterisks, which convey action. Just like in the Shakespearean drama, the colon indicates what each character (me and the students, in this case) is saying or doing. My chihuahua's face looks silly and very dramatic. Through this use of image, text, format, and convention, the meaning I intended to convey was that I was making fun of my students for being over-dramatic about what to me seems like a fairly simple assignment. While some might dismiss memes as shallow, when you start to unravel the layers of meaning, they can actually be very complex and even, dare I say, literary!

Think about a recent meme you have seen, or your favorite meme of all time. Imagine explaining this meme to someone who has no idea what it means. What is the message or idea behind the meme? What cultural reference points does it use to convey its message? In what ways might this meme be considered literature? How might this compare to a short poem, like a haiku?

Not Literature

Let's say you come to the conclusion that a meme, a gossip magazine, or the Twilight Series is not literary. Does that mean you have to feel guilty and give up reading it forever? Or that it is not "good"?

Just because a work is not literary does not mean it is "bad," that it does not have value, or that one cannot enjoy it. Indeed, there are plenty of examples of written works that are on the less literary side of the spectrum but are still fun and enriching to read. Joe Dirt i s not on the same artistic level of cinema as Schindler's List , but my husband still loves watching it. Nothing Taylor Swift has produced is as deep as Tupac Shakur's "Changes" (1992) or Mitski's "Last Words of a Shooting Star" (2014), but listening to Taylor Swift is my guilty pleasure. This is all to say that whether a text is literary or not is not as important as the methods of analyzing texts. In fact, texts which were excluded from literature are often argued into the literary canon through such analysis. Part of what makes analyzing literature so fun is that it means the definition of literature is always up for debate! This is especially important given the history of the canon.

The Problem with the Canon

In an ideal world, literature would be celebrated purely based on its artistic merit. Well-written works would last, poorly-written works would wither from public memory. However, that is not always the case. Works often achieve public prominence or survive based on qualities unrelated to skill or aesthetics, such as an author's fame, wealth, connections, or acceptance by the dominant culture. William Wordsworth, for example, was named Poet Laureate of England and has been taught as one of the "Big Six" major Romantic-era authors ever since. Indeed, he is accepted as part of the Romanticism literary canon. One would be hard-pressed to find a Literature anthology that does not feature William Wordsworth . However, how many people have read or heard of Dorothy Wordsworth , William Wordsworth's sister, who arguably depicted Romantic themes with equal skill and beauty? Or James Hogg, a Scottish contemporary of Wordsworth who was a lower-class shepherd? Similarly, while most readers have encountered F. Scott Fitzgerald or Edgar Allen Poe in their high school literature classes, how many have read Frederick Douglass in these same classes? In short, all artistic skill (arguably) considered equal, why do some authors predominantly feature in the Canon while others do not?

Let’s perform an experimental activity.

• Find a piece of paper or a whiteboard. On this piece of paper or whiteboard, write down as many works of literature that you feel constitute “Big L Literature.” Perhaps they are works you read in high school, works which have been made into films, or works you have been taught or told are literary masterworks. Don’t turn the page until you have written them down. Try to think of at least 10, but a larger sample size is better. Once you are finished, continue to the next paragraph.
• Alright, now look at your list. If you know the author of the literary texts you named, write their name next to the work. If you do not know the author, Google the information and write it down. Continue doing this until you have named the author of each work. Once you are finished, read on to the next paragraph.
• Now, as uncomfortable as it seems, label the gender/race/age/presumed sexual orientation of the authors you listed. After you have categorized them to the best of your ability, consider the following questions:
• What percentage of the authors are male?
• What percentage of the authors are white?
• What percentage of the authors are old/dead?
• What patterns do you notice? Why do you think this is?

I have replicated this experiment dozens of times in the classroom, and, in most classes, the vast majority of what students have been taught are “Literary Masterworks” are written by (pardon my colloquialism) dead white males. Although, as time progresses, it seems there is increasing but not proportionate representation on average. For example, while women make up about half of the population, over 80% of the most popular novels were written by men ("Battle"). While there are many possible reasons for this discrepancy in representation (which could be the focus of an entire textbook), what does this mean for scholars of literature? For students? For instructors? For society?

As a cultural relic, similar to art, many scholars suggest literature is a reflection of the society which produces it. This includes positive aspects of society (championing values such as love, justice, and good triumphing over evil), but it can also reflect negative aspects of society (such as discrimination, racism, sexism, homophobia, historical lack of opportunity for marginalized authors).

For example, enslaved Africans were often prevented from learning to read and write as a form of control. When Phillis Wheatley published her book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) she had to defend the fact that she wrote it, due to popularly held racist views that slaves were incapable of writing poetry. Later, Frederick Douglass wrote about how his enslavers banned him from reading and writing, as they realized "education and slavery were incompatible with each other" (Douglass). He later championed his learning to read and write as the means which conveyed him to freedom. However, even when trying to publish The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass ( 1845) his publishers were forced to prove that it was, in fact, an enslaved person who wrote the story and not a white man who wrote it for him. Slave owners actively attempted to keep this book from circulation as it threatened the institution of slavery upon which they depended. Indeed, to this day, Douglass' book continues to be banned in some prisons for its potential to incite revolution (Darby, Gilroy).

How could Black writers enter the canon en masse if they were not allowed to read or write? Or if they were forced to spend all of their waking hours working? And if those who had the means to read and write had to jump through absurd hoops just to have their works published? And if even those texts which were published were banned?

Similarly, throughout much of Western history, women have been discouraged from pursuing reading and writing, as it distracted from society's expectations for women to focus on motherly and household duties. Until the 1700s, women were not allowed to go to college. Even then, very few went: only the extremely wealthy. It was not until the 19th century that women attended college in representative numbers. Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of One's Own that if there are fewer works of literature written by women, it is only because society, historically, has not given women the time, education, funding, or space to do so. In this extended essay, she describes an imaginary sister of William Shakespeare who could have been just as great of a writer had she the same opportunities as her brother.

I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young—alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross-roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. This opportunity, as I think, it is now coming within your power to give her.

Woolf argues that in our time those who have been excluded from literature can now join the canon by adding their voices. The inequity of representation in literature -- which has arguably improved, but in many ways persists today -- can be remedied if more people from a wide array of backgrounds and walks of life are empowered to study and create Literature. That is one reason why the current study of literature is so exciting. As a student and budding literary scholar, you have the power to influence culture through your reading and analysis of literature! For one author and scholar's perspective on this topic, please watch this the following TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to see the ways in which such misrepresentations are harmful, and why it is important to veer away from the historically parochial Canon into what Chinua Achebe calls "a balance of stories" (qtd. Bacon).

• Original video available on TED Talk website
• Transcript of video

What "single stories" do you know? What are the "single stories" people have told about you? What story would you tell if you could? What kinds of stories do you want to read? Throughout this class, you will get the opportunity to encounter many different voices and stories from all over the world. While we faced hurdles of copyright permissions, the authors of this textbook attempted to embody the values espoused in this TED Talk & Chinua Achebe's conception of the "balance of stories." As you read the textbook, consider the stories which were omitted, why they were omitted, and what works of Literature you would include in this class if you could.

Works Cited

Bacon, Katie. "An African Voice." The Atlantic , 2000.

"Battle of the Authors: Are The Most Popular Rated Fiction Books Written by Men or Women?" Wordery , 1 Mar. 2019.

Darby, Luke. "Illinois Prison Bans Frederick Douglass's Memoir and Other "Racial" Books." GQ , 20 August 2019.

Douglass, Frederick. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. 1845.

Friedrich, Caspar David. "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog." Hamburger Kunsthalle Museum , 1818.

Gilroy, Paul. "Banned Books of Guantánamo: 'An American Slave' by Frederick Douglass." Vice , 14 Nov. 2014.

"literature, n.; 3b & 5" OED Online , Oxford University Press, September 2019, www.oed.com/view/Entry/109080. Accessed 6 September 2019.

Rollison, David. "Big L vs Little L Literature." Survey of World Literature I. College of Marin, 2008. Lecture.

Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral . 1773.

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. 1929.

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What Is Indirect Presentation?

Indirect presentation is a writing technique related to characterization. Through indirect presentation, the reader learns about the character’s personality through his thoughts, words and actions, and through the way other characters react to him.

With indirect presentation, the writer builds the character through a series of events and interactions. This is commonly referred to as “show, don’t tell” writing. For example, rather than stating that a character is apprehensive about new things, the writer has another character invite him to a new restaurant and comment on his resistance to new things. In both instances the reader receives the same information.

Writers build their characters through indirect presentation by placing them in environments and situations that indicate something about them, such as their social status, moral composition or level of education. Through the environment and the character’s interaction with supporting characters, the reader learns about the character’s identity.

Indirect presentation is considered more interesting and more engaging for the reader than direct presentation, but it compromises brevity and can stall the plot. The writer must decide what is most important for her work. For example, during the climax of the story, it may be necessary to divulge an essential quality of a character. Direct presentation allows the action to continue without interruption.

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Presentation

• Written By Gregg Rosenzweig
• Updated: November 8, 2023

We’re here to help you choose the most appropriate content types to fulfill your content strategy. In this series, we’re breaking down the most popular content types to their most basic fundamentals — simple definitions, clarity on formats, and plenty of examples — so you can start with a solid foundation.

What is a Presentation?

A communication device that relays a topic to an audience in the form of a slide show, demonstration, lecture, or speech, where words and pictures complement each other.

Why should you think of presentations as content?

The beauty of content creation is that almost anything can become a compelling piece of content . Just depends on the creativity used to convert it and the story that brings it to life.

The long and short of it

Although the length of a presentation in terms of time can depend on the overall approach (Are you talking a lot? Are you referring to the screen in detail or not?), consider the number of informational content slides when tallying the overall presentation length. For instance, don’t include title slides in your tally when conveying length to a content creator.

A general guide to presentation length:

• Short Form (5 content slides)
• Standard Form (10 content slides)
• Long Form (20+ content slides)

Popular use cases for presentations…

Let’s consider TED Talks for a minute: one of the best examples (bar none) of how words, pictures, and a narrative can make people care about something they otherwise might not.

These “talks” pre-date podcasts and blend a compelling use of language and imagery in presentation format to spread ideas in unique ways.

TED Talks have been viewed a billion-plus times worldwide (and counting) and are worth considering when it comes to how you might use video-presentation content to connect with your customers in creative, cool, new ways.

Business types:

Any company that has a pitch deck, executive summary , sales presentation, or any kind of internal document that can be repurposed into external-facing content pieces — without pain.

Presentation Examples – Short Form

Presentation Examples – Standard Form

Presentation Examples – Long Form

Understanding Content Quality in Examples

Our team has rated content type examples in three degrees of quality ( Good, Better, Best ) to help you better gauge resources needed for your content plan. In general, the degrees of content quality correspond to our three content levels ( General, Qualified, Expert ) based on the criteria below. Please consider there are multiple variables that could determine the cost, completion time, or content level for any content piece with a perceived degree of quality.

Impress your clients, co-workers, and leadership team with exceptional content for your next presentation, product demonstration, and more. If you need help getting your message across in a succinct, attention-grabbing, and persuasive way, talk to one of our content specialists today.

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Direct Characterization

Definition of direct characterization.

Direct characterization means the way an author or another character within the story describes or reveals a character, through the use of descriptive adjectives , epithets , or phrases . In other words, direct characterization happens when a writer reveals traits of a character in a straightforward manner, or through comments made by another character involved with him in the storyline.

Direct characterization helps the readers understand the type of character they are going to read about. For instance, in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible , he describes his character John Proctor in this way: “He was the kind of man – powerful of body, even-tempered, and not easily led – who cannot refuse support to partisans without drawing their deepest resentment.”

Examples of Direct Characterization in Literature

Example #1: the most dangerous game (by richard connell).

“The first thing Rainsford’s eyes discerned was the largest man Rainsford had ever seen – a gigantic creature, solidly made and black bearded to the waist. … ” ‘Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow,’ remarked the general, ‘but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow, but, I’m afraid, like all his race, a bit of a savage.’ “

The above passage shows a good example of a direct characterization. Here Zaroff has explicitly described another character Ivan in the story The Most Dangerous Game , leaving readers with no more questions about him. Ivan is a muscular, huge man, having a long black beard. He is deaf and dumb, yet strong, Zaroff says.

Example #2: The Old Man and the Sea (by Earnest Hemingway)

“The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheek … Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”

Hemingway uses the method of direct characterization to describe the old man’s personality traits, especially the vivid eyes of his main character, the old man, Santiago in his novel .

Example #3: Hedda Gabler (by Henrik Ibsen)

“MISS JULIANA TESMAN, with her bonnet on a carrying a parasol, comes in from the hall, followed by BERTA, who carries a bouquet wrapped in paper. MISS TESMAN is a comely and pleasant- looking lady of about sixty-five. She is nicely but simply dressed in a grey walking-costume. BERTA is a middle-aged woman of plain and rather countrified appearance…GEORGE TESMAN comes from the right into the inner room … He is a middle-sized, young-looking man … He wears spectacles, and is somewhat carelessly dressed in comfortable indoor clothes.”

In this excerpt, Henrik Ibsen has described three characters: Miss Tesman, Berta, and George Tesman. He has clearly shown their personalities and mannerism through direct characterization.

Example #4: Pride and Prejudice (by Jane Austen)

“Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. … he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.”

Mr. Bingley, the romantic interest of Jane, and his friend, Mr. Darcey, are described in this excerpt through direct characterization. She has admired Mr. Bingley for his pleasant countenance, comparing him to Mr. Darcy.

Example #5: The Canterbury Tales (by Geoffrey Chaucer)

“He yaf nat of that text a pulled hen, That seith that hunters ben nat hooly men, Ne that a monk, whan he is recchelees… His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas, And eek his face, as he hadde been enoynt. His eyen stepe, and rollynge in his heed, That stemed as a forneys of a leed; His bootes souple, his hors in greet estaat.”

Through monk’s portrait, his physical and social life, readers see a satire of the religious figures that should live a proper monastic life of hard work and deprivation. This is the achievement of the description of Chaucer that he has described a character through direct characterization.

Function of Direct Characterization

Direct characterization shows traits as well as motivation of a character. Motivation can refer to desires, love, hate, or fear of the character. It is a crucial part that makes a story compelling. Descriptions about a character’s behavior, appearance, way of speaking, interests, mannerisms, and other aspects draw the interest of the readers and make the characters seem real. Also, good descriptions develop readers’ strong sense of interest in the story.

Related posts:

• Direct Object
• Characterization
• 10 Best Characterization Examples in Literature

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All you need to know about Presentation Handouts

Hitiksha jain.

• Body Language & Delivery

What is a Presentation Handout?

A presentation handout or a handout is a piece of printed information which is handed over to the audience after a presentation, meeting, or a conference. It’s an integral part of the total experience of your audience. A well-thought handout may be your best tool towards ensuring your message is effectively communicated.

It allows your audience to focus more on what you said during the presentation, and serves as a tangible reminder of your content afterwards. 

Let’s assume you’ve been asked to give a speech, and you’re excited to give the best presentation possible. You put in all kinds of preparations– from creating an amazing presentation, probing for perfect examples, to infusing memorable anecdotes, terrific insights, great visuals and even a wry joke here or there. You’ve covered all the possible angles to make your presentation or speech impactful and effective– or have you?

An effective presentation is a combination of not only your PowerPoint Presentation, but also the other forms of communication- writing, reporting, handouts to persuade, convince, inform, and enlighten your audience.

As a brand or a speaker, you would want your message to have a long lasting impact over your audience for which you need concrete manifestations like handouts, as most of us focus on preparing what will happen during the presentation, not what happens afterwards .

You need to convince people of why you are doing something rather than explaining what you are doing .

“ People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do. “ Simon Sinek

Benefits of providing a handout:

1. helps you avoid information overload.

It allows you to cut down the amount of information that you cover in your presentation and combines the most important aspects from it in a handy text form.

By adding the essential and worth-knowing content about your brand will help you make your speech more memorable. 

Chunky paragraphs make your audience apathetic towards reading your handout as the essence is lost.

2. Lays emphasis on your message

Your key message should permeate through all of your business materials- brochures, website, or handouts. You need to provide supporting data around that one message to lay emphasis on it. 

If there is one thing that should be crystal clear in your handout, it is your key message. As it sets you apart from your competition and describes your brand as a whole.

3. Acts as a concrete reminder

Chances are, your audience won’t remember the details of your presentation a year later. With a handout, they have all the important information you covered as well as a reminder of you and your brand. 

As it is a takeaway material, whenever the audience member looks at it, it’ll help them recall all what you spoke.

4. Allows you to add supporting data

Your handout can be supplemented with additional information along with the main elements from your presentation. This can even be visuals, graphics, or references, as it can really clarify and supplement your main argument and tie things together.

It is a good idea to provide your contact information and email. Depending on the type and purpose of the presentation, you can also provide your business address and telephone number.

5. Provides a synopsis of your speech

The information in your handout is short and to the point. Before expanding on individual and main points from your presentation, you need to focus on your target audience.

By doing this, you tailor the handout to their level, avoiding technical terms where they would get distracted from your point. It is very important to condense the core statements of your presentation into key points, rather than including a distracting stream of text. This way, you retain your audience’s full attention.

Pro Tip- To arouse your audience’s curiosity right at the beginning of your handout, you could include an upbeat quote, a proverb or a question.

6. Personal Branding

Personal branding is the practice of marketing people and their careers as brands. It is an ongoing process of developing and maintaining a reputation and impression of an individual, group, or organization.

Your personal brand is more than the brand statement you use as your elevator pitch or to market yourself in your digital, and online marketing communications.

Handouts allow you to define your personal brand. It is the combination of your personal attributes, values, drivers, strengths, passions, and contact details that differentiates your unique promise of value from your peers.

Considering the above points, it’s obvious, then, that a handout can be very useful for your audience, your presentation and yourself. Once you know what to do, they can be relatively straightforward to produce.

Ways on how you can make your handouts intriguing:

1. it is a reflection of your presentation.

Imagine watching FRIENDS from any random episode where you seldom know the character sketch of a Chandler who is witty and full of one liners, or a Joey who is cute but a little slow, or a Monica who is obsessed with cleaning.

In such a situation, you are bound to feel unconnected because you haven’t watched the 1st season and the episode you are watching is nowhere a reflection of it.

In the same way, your handout is a summary of what you’ve spoken in your presentation, so it automatically becomes a reflection of it. The audience should be able to resonate your handout with your presentation that they’ve just attended.

Ideally, your handout should have the same title as your presentation and should follow the same structure, so that audience members can easily find the information they want.

2. Remember, it is not a copy of your presentation

Printing your entire presentation on the handouts is lazy and least effective. It is supposed to have key points from your entire speech.

You need not limit your handout only to the topics covered in your presentation. It’s okay to include related information that further supports your speech.

While you were preparing your presentation, you were selecting the most essential information, offered concisely, that supported your messages. With your handout, you’re free to expand on bullet points and graphics to allow a more complete explanation. Just don’t go overboard. Although you’re offering more information, you must still keep it well organized and to the point.

3. Take proper time to prepare your handouts

As stated earlier, we focus and give time to prepare our presentation and what happens during that in order to not make a fool of ourselves upon the stage. And before your presentation it strikes you that you need to have handouts, so you make it hurriedly- giving it less importance.

Cobbling together a handout at the last moment is not only stressful, it can be counterproductive, as it undermines your professionalism and never goes unnoticed.

Remember, your handouts require the same amount of focus and time as your presentation. In fact it is something your audience will take along with them, so I’m sure you would want your handout to have all the essential information regarding your brand along with CTA. 

4. Professionalism is the key

Make your handouts look attractive and appealing to the eye. Here are certain ways to make it look professional:

• Avoid cluttering of data.
• Avoid putting a lot of data that your handout begins to look like a textbook.
• Use a simple and readable font.
• Use the same graphical elements and the same colours.
• Don’t clutter up your handout with data without sacrificing the essential content.

The handout is a concrete reminder of your presentation. It may also get passed onto other people who were not at your presentation. So make sure it enhances the perception people have of you.

5. It should have more essential information

Presentations are supposed to have a lot of visual content; however, they are unlikely to make sense without the additional text. Going overboard with text in your presentation is not a good idea. They are mainly used for inspiring people to find out more about a topic or your brand. 

Add the extra information in the handout.

As said earlier, your handout is a takeaway your audience will take to review later or maybe pass it to someone else who didn’t attend your presentation. Therefore, it is very important to add essential and supporting data- contact information, case studies, references, marketing literature, or other collateral materials.

6. Add references (if any)

Sometimes it can be confusing to know when and how to cite sources during a speech, especially while using a visual-aid PowerPoint Presentation. 

If you’re citing research, references become an inevitable part of it.

But the question is where to add these references?

Well, it is better if you don’t clutter your slides with references. So the best option is you can add it in your handouts. This will not only make your presentation neat and organized but also make your handouts insightful. 

However, you need to inform your audience that you’ve cited sources for this XYZ research in your handout. Also, try providing information about related blogs, websites, and books (if any).

7. Make your handout a stand-alone

Your handout may be passed onto people who were not present at your presentation. Or an audience member may look at it a year from now when they’ve forgotten most of your speech.

Make sure your handout helps them recall it and something that will make sense to them. For people who weren’t present for your presentation, include a brief credibility-establishing information about you.

When is the best time to distribute your Handout, before or after?

Imagine that you’ve spent weeks preparing your presentation wherein you’ve got wonderful persuasive material as well as a concise handout summarizing and supporting your arguments.

The only one thing that you didn’t plan was when to distribute the handouts. Maybe at the beginning? At the end? In the middle? Or does the timing even matter?

Rule of thumb: Distribute your handouts at the end.

It’s generally to your advantage to distribute handouts at the end of your presentation.

Benefits of distributing your Handouts before your presentation:

• You make it clear that the handout is meant to be taken away. There’s no guarantee that your handout doesn’t end up in the recycling bin, but your aim is to give it a chance to survive as long as possible, carrying your message with it.
• If you plan to hand it out at the end, it can be sued as a summary document (as opposed to making it a less useful transcript of your presentation)
• Your audience will not be distracted reading it during your presentation, when you need their eyes and attention with you
• The surprises, suspense, and case studies won’t be disclosed (which might otherwise be hinted at or spoiled by the handout)
• It is symbolic of giving a gift to the audience to thank them for their attention
• There will be less rustling of papers to distract both you and your audience.

However, there are a number of caveats wherein you will have to distribute it before your presentation:

• When your speech is highly technical and detail-oriented, it is better to put those words in the hands of the audience
• When your content is far too dense, you can’t expect your audience to absorb such voluminous data. So to handle this: you can provide them the material and draw their attention.
• Also, in case of coaches and trainees you will have to handout workbooks for your presentations at the start, as the audience may need to read along, do exercises, etc. in the workbook itself.

Clear and Concise: How to structure a Handout

The motto “less is more” applies very effectively to handouts. In concrete terms, this means: do without whole sentences and make sure you use key points, abbreviations, arrows and symbols. Ideally, your handout should not consist of more than two A4 pages.

In addition to important information from your presentation, a handout needs to include the following:

• Basic information, probably in the upper left corner of the handout, such as the location of the presentation, title, name of the speaker (optional)
• The date, probably in the upper right corner
• Heading– preferably the title of your presentation and it should be centered
• A clear structure, based on the individual headings of the presentation
• An aesthetic page layout with a standard font type and colour– preferably same as your presentation.

The structure of your handout should follow the structure of your presentation. It is best to limit your points to those which support your main argument. Keep the sub-items on the handout as simple as possible and don’t go into too much detail.

To make your handout visually appealing, work on your fonts and colours. In addition to using clear, standard fonts, try to keep the font size in the headers and footers uniform and smaller than in the main part.

Pro Tip- Create an area for your audience to make their own notes on your handout. Either make the right margin wider or leave a few lines of space under your last point.

Here’s an example,

• Overboarding of information will make your handout look very cluttered leading them to lose interest
• Distributing your handouts at the start of your presentation will lead to distraction amid the audience
• It shouldn’t be complex to understand when read by someone who wasn’t present at the time of your presentation
• Do not copy paste your entire presentation as it is. You need to include additional information (along with the one in your presentation)

How to make a Presentation Handout?

The easiest and the simplest way to make your handouts is via Microsoft Word. You can follow these simple steps in order to create one:

• Click on the ‘Create handout’ option and transfer your presentation to Microsoft Word
• After that, choose which presentation slides should appear on your handout
• You can easily adjust your text, graphics, content and decide whether you want to include a note margin, a header, or a footer
•  In addition to the option of printing the handout, you can also save it directly in Word as a Word or PDF document – a simple way to make the handout digitally which is available to your audience.

Voilà! Here you go.

For more help, check this video out,

Types of Handouts:

1. gapped handouts.

As the name suggests, this handout consists of gaps that the audience is required to fill in. It may also include complex graphics or charts or tables of statistics which the members are expected to complete and they can only do that if they heard you well.

You can also outline the main points and leave gaps for key words to be inserted.

For example, 

a) P_ _ _ _ _ t_ _ _ _n/ _ a _ _ _ _t_ (Presentation Handouts)

b) _a_ _ed/ H_ _ _o_ _ _  (Gapped Handouts)

2. Skeletal Handouts

It provides a bare outline of the presentation structure with some key statements and main references. This can be useful to aid members to make notes and follow a structure.

It is a great tool to maintain the audience engagement and focus throughout your presentation.

3. Worksheets

A worksheet is a sheet of paper on which problems are worked out or solved and answers are recorded.

This is mainly used in the classroom scenario in order to encourage students to remember what they learnt. It can motivate them to work without any assistance.

4. Information Sheets

It is also called a short information document. This sheet provides you a brief summary of a subject and its aims.

It may be necessary to draft more than one information sheet if you need to cater to the participants with different needs.

It is mainly used in the areas of education, for example, information on courses provided by an institution.

Also check- How to give motivational speech to students.

Examples of Handouts:

A handout is a useful tool for helping your audience learn important concepts from a meeting, presentation or other business event. When making a handout, it’s important to summarize the key points instead of just printing out the notes you used during the presentation. Include material that goes beyond the information you covered to help your audience better understand the concepts. Here are some examples:

In the above example, they have summarized the main concepts, given information about their brand and pointed out the reasons why you should choose them.

However, one thing that they didn’t focus on is leaving space to add notes. This is important because it allows the audience member to pen down the essentials points in their own words. It fosters the way people learn and understand information. 

The above example is used when you have to lay down the program of an event. Now in such a scenario, you will need to hand it over to the audience beforehand.

So when you look at it, it is filled with a lot of text with no infographics or visuals. Therefore, the audience somewhere might lose interest looking at a handout only filled with text.

Check these examples out for inspiration:

Final Thoughts

A well-prepared handout can be an effective tool to support your presentation, acting as a guide and memory aid for both you and your audience. Used properly, they can increase the interest and attention of your audience, and allow you to give a clear and professional presentation.

Do not forget to add a CTA (Call to action) in your handout, encouraging them to change or act on something in relation with your talk.

Your handout is going to remain with your audience, so make sure you provide all the necessary information in less words. Basically, a summary of your presentation in minimum words.

Let us know if you end up implementing any of these tips in the comments below.

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Presentation Definition: A Comprehensive Guide

Table of contents, unraveling the presentation definition.

Presentation – a word frequently used in English, Spanish, Latin, French, and Arabic contexts, but what does it exactly mean? In this article, we delve into the definition of presentation , exploring its various facets and applications in different fields.

The Essence of Presentation: A Definition

What is a presentation.

A presentation is the act of presenting information or ideas to a group of people in a structured and deliberate manner, often with the aid of visual aids like PowerPoint, Keynote, or multimedia tools.

Presentations are a ubiquitous part of the professional, educational, and social landscape. The act of presenting, essentially communicating information and ideas to a group of people, has evolved significantly over time. This article explores the definition of a presentation, its various formats, the skills required to make it effective, and the nuances of a great presentation, all while weaving in an eclectic mix of keywords.

Historical Roots: From Latin to Modern Day

The Evolution from ‘Praesentātiō’ to ‘Presentation’

In its essence, a presentation is the act of presenting or displaying information or ideas to an audience. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “the action or process of presenting something to someone.” In Latin, the term stems from ‘praesentātiō’, denoting the action of placing before or showing. This definition has broadened in modern English to encompass various methods of showcasing information, whether it’s a business pitch, an academic lecture, or introducing a new product.

The term has its origins in Latin (‘praesentātiō’), evolving through various languages like French and British English, symbolizing the act of presenting, displaying, or giving something to others.

Types and Formats of Presentations

Diverse Formats for Different Needs

Presentations can vary in formats – from formal PowerPoint presentations to informal Prez (an informal abbreviation of presentation) discussions, each tailored to suit specific requirements.

Enhancing Presentation Skills: A Guide

Mastering the Art of Presentation

Presentations come in various formats, from the traditional speech to more contemporary multimedia showcases. PowerPoint, a widely used tool, allows the integration of text, images, and graphs to create visually appealing slides. Similarly, Apple’s Keynote offers tools for creating impactful multimedia presentations. The inclusion of visual aids, like graphs and charts, enhances comprehension and retention. For those interested in learning Spanish, Arabic, or French, incorporating these languages in presentations can broaden audience reach.

Effective presentation skills involve a blend of clear communication, eye contact , engaging visual aids , and a confident delivery. These skills are crucial in both business and educational settings.

Presentation in the Digital Age: Multimedia and Keynote

Embracing Technology for Impactful Presentations

In the era of digital communication, tools like multimedia presentations and Apple’s Keynote software have become indispensable for creating dynamic and interactive presentations.

The Art of Visual Aids: Graphs and More

Using Graphs and Visuals Effectively

Effective presentations often include graphs and other visual aids to convey complex information in an easily digestible format, enhancing the audience’s understanding.

Presentation in Different Languages

A Multilingual Perspective

The concept of presentation transcends languages, from English to Arabic , each offering unique nuances in the art of presenting.

Presentation in Literature and Culture

Presentation Copy and Beyond

The term also appears in literary contexts, such as a “presentation copy” of a book, and in cultural scenarios like a “breech presentation” in childbirth, where the baby is positioned to exit the birth canal feet first.

Effective Presentation: Tips and Techniques

Crafting an Impactful Presentation

An effective presentation is more than just delivering facts; it involves engaging storytelling, structured key points , and the ability to connect with the audience.

To deliver an effective presentation, certain skills are paramount. English, being a global lingua franca, is often the preferred language for presentations. However, the ability to present in multiple languages, like Spanish or French, can be a significant advantage.

Eye contact is a crucial skill, establishing a connection with the audience and making the presentation more engaging. Additionally, the ability to read the room and adjust the presentation accordingly is vital.

Incorporating Quizzes and Group Activities

Interactive elements like quizzes can transform a presentation from a monologue into a dynamic group activity. They encourage participation and can be especially effective in educational settings. Quizzes can also be used in business presentations to gauge audience understanding or to introduce a new product.

Presentation in Educational Contexts

Learning Through Presentations

In educational settings, presentations are used as a tool for teaching and assessment, often involving quizzes and interactive sessions to enhance learning.

Synonyms and Related Terms

Exploring Synonyms and the Thesaurus

The thesaurus offers a range of synonyms for ‘presentation,’ such as exhibition, demonstration, and display, each with slightly different connotations.

The Thesaurus and Vocabulary Expansion

Utilizing a thesaurus can enrich presentation language, offering synonyms and example sentences to clarify points. The ‘word of the day’ concept, often found in English learning resources, can be an interesting addition to presentations, especially in multilingual contexts.

Historical and Specialized Types of Presentations

The term ‘presentation’ also has specialized meanings. In historical contexts, a ‘presentation copy’ refers to a book or manuscript gifted by the author. In obstetrics, ‘breech presentation’ denotes a situation where the baby is positioned to exit the birth canal feet or buttocks first. Understanding these specialized definitions enriches the overall grasp of the term.

Presentation in Business: Introducing a New Product

The Role of Presentation in Business

In business contexts, presentations are crucial for scenarios like introducing a new product , persuading investors, or communicating with stakeholders.

Word of the Day: Presentation

Expanding Vocabulary with ‘Presentation’

In language learning, ‘presentation’ can be a word of the day , helping learners understand its usage through example sentences and pronunciation (notated as /ˌprez.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/ in English).

Key Points and Summarization

An effective presentation distills complex information into key points, making it easier for the audience to remember the most important takeaways. Summarization skills are critical in achieving this clarity.

Cultural Influences and Adaptations

The concept of presentations varies across cultures. In Arabic-speaking countries, the style of presentation might differ significantly from that in English-speaking contexts. The benefice of understanding cultural nuances cannot be overstated, as it can significantly impact the effectiveness of a presentation.

The Role of Technology

Technology, particularly multimedia, plays a pivotal role in modern presentations. From PowerPoint slides to advanced software like Keynote, the use of technology has revolutionized the way information is presented. The integration of videos, sound, and interactive elements makes presentations more engaging and memorable.

Eye Contact and Body Language

In delivering a presentation, non-verbal cues like eye contact and body language are as important as the spoken content. Maintaining eye contact with the audience establishes a connection and keeps them engaged. Similarly, confident body language can convey authority and enthusiasm.

The Art of Storytelling

A great presentation often resembles storytelling. It’s not just about relaying facts; it’s about weaving a narrative that resonates with the audience. This involves understanding the audience’s needs and interests and tailoring the content accordingly.

Innovation and New Products

Presentations are often the first introduction of a new product to the market. The effectiveness of these presentations can make or break the product’s success. Highlighting the unique features and benefits in a clear, compelling manner is crucial.

The Power of Presentation

Presentations are a powerful tool for communication and education. Whether in a formal business setting or an informal educational environment, mastering the art of presentation can lead to more effective and impactful communication.

1. Oxford English Dictionary

2. Merriam-Webster Thesaurus

3. Apple Keynote User Guide

4. Presentation Techniques in Educational Literature

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## Frequently Asked Questions About Presentations

### What is in a presentation?

A presentation typically includes a combination of spoken words and visual aids such as PowerPoint slides, graphs, or multimedia elements. It’s an organized way to convey information or ideas to a group of people.

### What is meant by giving a presentation?

Giving a presentation refers to the act of presenting information or ideas to an audience. This act, known in various languages including English, Spanish, and French as ‘presentation’ (or ‘praesentātiō’ in Latin), involves communication skills, visual aids, and sometimes interactive elements like quizzes.

### What makes a good presentation?

A good presentation effectively communicates key points, engages the audience through eye contact and clear speech (often practiced as a ‘word of the day’ in English classes), uses visual aids like graphs, and is well-structured. Effective presentation skills are crucial for this.

### What are the types of presentation?

There are various types of presentations, including formal business presentations (often using PowerPoint or Keynote), educational lectures, sales pitches for a new product, and informal talks. Each type uses different formats and approaches.

### What are the 4 parts of a presentation?

The four main parts of a presentation are the introduction, the main body, the conclusion, and the Q&A session. Each part plays a vital role in delivering an effective presentation.

### What are the three things that a good presentation should do?

A good presentation should inform, engage, and persuade or inspire the audience. It’s about more than just delivering facts; it’s an act of communication that can change perspectives or encourage action.

### How is a presentation linked with multimedia?

Presentations often use multimedia elements like videos, audio clips, and animated graphs to enhance the viewer’s understanding and engagement. Multimedia tools like PowerPoint and Keynote are widely used in creating dynamic presentations.

### How long should a presentation be?

The length of a presentation can vary, but it’s typically between 15 to 30 minutes. The duration depends on the context and the amount of information to be covered. It’s important to keep presentations concise to maintain the audience’s attention.

These answers incorporate various aspects of presentations, including their definition, formats, and the skills required, in multiple languages and contexts, as seen in resources like Oxford dictionaries and thesaurus.

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Cliff Weitzman

Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.

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Meaning of presentation in English

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presentation noun ( EVENT )

• talk She will give a talk on keeping kids safe on the internet.
• lecture The lecture is entitled "War and the Modern American Presidency".
• presentation We were given a presentation of progress made to date.
• speech You might have to make a speech when you accept the award.
• address He took the oath of office then delivered his inaugural address.
• oration It was to become one of the most famous orations in American history.
• The presentation was a collaborative effort by all the children in the class .
• The charity invited the press to a presentation of its plans for the future .
• The magazine asked its readers to send in their comments about the new style of presentation.
• Jenny's retiring and I think there's going to be a small presentation this afternoon .
• Graduates must be in full academic dress at the presentation of certificates .
• call for papers
• extemporize
• maiden speech
• talk at someone

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

presentation noun ( APPEARANCE )

• adverse conditions
• good/bad karma idiom
• have it in you idiom
• unaffiliated
• undercurrent

presentation | American Dictionary

Presentation | business english, examples of presentation, collocations with presentation, presentation.

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balancing act

a difficult situation in which someone has to try to give equal amounts of importance, time, attention, etc. to two or more different things at the same time

Binding, nailing, and gluing: talking about fastening things together

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What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field. 

A literature review should: 

• Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
• Explain why this review has taken place;
• Articulate a position or hypothesis;
• Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From  S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

• Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
• Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

• Organizes or describes a topic
• Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

• It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
• It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
• It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
• It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

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Does a presentation’s medium affect its message? PowerPoint, Prezi, and oral presentations

Samuel t. moulton.

1 Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

2 Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Selen Türkay

Stephen m. kosslyn.

3 Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, San Francisco, California, United States of America

• Conceptualization: SMK ST STM.
• Data curation: ST STM.
• Formal analysis: ST STM.
• Funding acquisition: SMK ST STM.
• Investigation: ST.
• Methodology: SMK ST STM.
• Project administration: ST STM.
• Resources: ST STM.
• Software: ST STM.
• Supervision: SMK ST STM.
• Validation: SMK ST STM.
• Visualization: STM.
• Writing – original draft: STM.
• Writing – review & editing: SMK ST STM.

Associated Data

All data files are available from the Open Science Framework https://osf.io/fgf7c/ .

Despite the prevalence of PowerPoint in professional and educational presentations, surprisingly little is known about how effective such presentations are. All else being equal, are PowerPoint presentations better than purely oral presentations or those that use alternative software tools? To address this question we recreated a real-world business scenario in which individuals presented to a corporate board. Participants (playing the role of the presenter) were randomly assigned to create PowerPoint, Prezi, or oral presentations, and then actually delivered the presentation live to other participants (playing the role of corporate executives). Across two experiments and on a variety of dimensions, participants evaluated PowerPoint presentations comparably to oral presentations, but evaluated Prezi presentations more favorably than both PowerPoint and oral presentations. There was some evidence that participants who viewed different types of presentations came to different conclusions about the business scenario, but no evidence that they remembered or comprehended the scenario differently. We conclude that the observed effects of presentation format are not merely the result of novelty, bias, experimenter-, or software-specific characteristics, but instead reveal a communication preference for using the panning-and-zooming animations that characterize Prezi presentations.

Introduction

How do the characteristics of a communication medium affect its messages? This question has been the subject of much philosophical and empirical inquiry, with some (e.g., [ 1 ]) claiming that the medium determines the message (“the medium is the message”), others (e.g., [ 2 ]) claiming that characteristics of a medium affect the message, and others claiming that the medium and message are separable (e.g.,[ 3 , 4 ]). As psychologists, we ask: What mental mechanisms underlie effective communication and how can presenters leverage these mechanisms to communicate better? These questions—at the intersection of psychology and communication practice—motivate this research.

That said, the relative efficacy of different communication media or technologies informs the primary questions of interest. If we can demonstrate that oral presentations are less or more effective than those that rely on presentation software—or that presenters who use one type of presentation software tend to be more effective than those who use another—then we advance our psychological and practical understanding of effective communication. Thus, in the tradition of use-inspired basic research [ 5 ]—and as a means to an end, rather than an end unto itself—we compare the effectiveness of three commonly-used formats for communication: oral, PowerPoint, and Prezi presentations.

We focused on presentations because they populate our academic, professional, and even personal lives in the form of public speeches, academic lectures, webinars, class presentations, wedding toasts, courtroom arguments, sermons, product demonstrations, and business presentations [ 6 – 8 ], and because basic questions remain about how to present effectively. Should we present with or without presentation software? If we should present with software, which software? We examined PowerPoint and Prezi because they are popular and psychologically interesting alternatives: Whereas PowerPoint’s linear slide format might reduce cognitive load, focus attention, and promote logical analysis, Prezi’s map-like canvas format and heavy reliance on animation (see the Background section and https://prezi.com for examples) might facilitate visuospatial processing, conceptual understanding, and narrative storytelling.

To inform the present research, we explore the methodological challenges of media research and review past research on presentation formats.

Methodological challenges of media research

To research the efficacy of different communication formats fairly and accurately, one must overcome two stubborn methodological challenges. First, because correlation is not causation and the variables that underlie media usage are heavily confounded, such research requires true experimentation. To study whether a blended learning “flipped classroom” is a more effective instructional medium than traditional lecturing, for example, researchers gain little insight by comparing outcomes for students who enroll in one type of course versus the other. To control for audience (in this case, student) self-selection effects, researchers need to 1) randomly assign audience members to different communication conditions (in this case, pedagogies) or 2) manipulate format within participants. Moreover, the same methodological controls need to be applied to presenters (in this case, instructors). Instructors who choose to teach with emerging, innovative methods probably differ in numerous other respects (e.g., motivation) from those who teach with more traditional methods. If students assigned randomly to a flipped classroom format perform better than those assigned randomly to a traditional classroom format, we risk drawing inferences about confounds instead of causes unless instructors are also assigned randomly to instructional media. To make strong, accurate inferences, therefore, researchers interested in communication must control for audience and presenter self-selection effects. Such control introduces new complexities; when randomly assigning presenters to formats, for example, one must ensure that all presenters receive sufficient training in the relevant format. Moreover, such control is often cumbersome, sometimes impractical, and occasionally unethical (e.g., randomly assigning students in actual courses to hypothetically worse instructional conditions). But there are no adequate methodological substitutes for proper experimental control.

A second thorny methodological challenge inherent in conducting media research concerns how to draw general inferences about formats instead of specific inferences about exemplars of those formats. For example, if one advertising expert is assigned randomly to design a print ad and another expert a television ad—and a hundred consumers are assigned randomly to view the television or print ad—can we actually infer anything about print versus television ads in general when the two groups of consumers behave differently? Arguably not, because such a finding is just as easily explained by other (confounding) differences between the ads or their creators (e.g., ratio of print to graphics, which sorts of people—if any—are shown, and so forth). In other words, even with proper random assignment, researchers who intend to study different forms of communication risk merely studying different instances of communication. Statistically speaking, one should assume a random not fixed effect of the communication objects of interest (e.g., presentations, lectures, advertisements). To overcome this challenge and draw generalizable inferences, one must (at the very least) sample a sufficiently large set of examples within each medium.

Research on presentation software

Methodological shortcomings.

Considerable research has been conducted on how different presentation formats (particularly PowerPoint) convey information (for review, see [ 9 ]). However, much of this research is anecdotal or based on case studies. For example, Tufte [ 10 ] claims that PowerPoint’s default settings lead presenters to create bulleted lists and vacuous graphs that abbreviate arguments and fragment thought. And Kjeldsen [ 11 ] used Al Gore’s TED talk on climate change as a positive example of how visuals can be used to effectively convey evidence and enhance verbal communication.

Research that goes beyond mere anecdote or case study is plagued by the aforementioned methodological shortcomings: failure to control for audience self-selection effects (71% of studies), failure to control for presenter self-selection effects (100% of studies), and a problematic assumption of fixed effects across content and presenters (91% of studies). As is evident in Table 1 , no studies overcame two of these shortcomings, let alone all three. For example, in one of the most heavily-cited publications on this topic Szabo and Hasting [ 12 ] investigated the efficacy of PowerPoint in undergraduate education. In the first study, they examined whether students who received lectures with PowerPoint performed better on a test than students who received traditional lectures. Students were not assigned randomly to lecture conditions, however; rather, the comparison was across time, between two cohorts of students enrolled in different iterations of the same course. Any observed outcome difference could have been caused by student or instructor variables (e.g., preparedness), not lecture format. The fact that no such differences were found does not obviate this concern: Such differences may in fact have been present, but were overshadowed by confounding characteristics of students or instructors. In the second study, the authors varied presentation format within the same cohort of students, but confounded format with order, time, content, and performance measure: student performance was compared between lectures on different days, on different topics, and using different tests. As the authors themselves note, the observed differences may have had nothing to do with PowerPoint. In the third study, they counterbalanced lecture order and content; some students received a PowerPoint lecture first and others a traditional lecture first, and the same topics were presented in both formats. However, students were assigned to conditions based on their course enrollment, not randomly, but more importantly the study included only four presentations, all by one presenter. Any advantages of the two PowerPoint lectures (none were found) might have been particular to those instances or that presenter and not representative of the format more generally.

Note: "PPT Only" studies investigated whether participants had positive, neutral, or negative perceptions of PowerPoint and did not explicitly contrast PowerPoint with other presentation formats. All studies were coded by two authors (STM and ST), with any discrepancies (4%) resolved by discussion. To determine whether researchers studied their own presentations or students, we sometimes made inferences based on researchers' published academic affiliations, appointments, and disciplines, as well as other online information (e.g., curricula vitae).

Most studies—even those that control experimentally for audience self-selection—relied on only a single self-selected presenter, and some relied on only one presentation per format. In one study ([ 13 ]: Experiment 1), for example, one of the authors varied the format of his lecture instruction randomly across the semester, using transparences or PowerPoint slides. In another study [ 14 ], students who were enrolled in one of the authors’ courses were assigned randomly to a PowerPoint or Prezi e-lecture that contained identical audio narration and written text. In a third study [ 15 ], one of the researchers gave the same lecture over the course of the year to rotating medical students, using PowerPoint on odd months and overhead slides on even months. What reason is there to think that we can make general claims about presentation format based on studies of single lectures or single presenters? That is, how can we reasonably assume fixed as opposed to random effects? If the use of presentation software does meaningfully influence student learning or experience, surely that effect is not constant across all presenters or presentations—some instructors use it more effectively than others, and within any format some presentations are more effective than others (see [ 16 ]). And how can we assume that presenters who select both the content and format of their presentations are not designing them in ways that favor one format over another?

Research on the efficacy of presentation software has numerous other flaws, most notably the failure to control for experimenter effects or demand characteristics. In 82% of studies we identified, for example, the researchers investigated their own instruction and studied their own students. It is difficult to imagine that one would make these instructional and research efforts (e.g., creating new course material, conducting a field experiment) without a strong belief in the efficacy of one format over the other, and it is plausible (if not likely) that such beliefs would influence students or confound instructional format with instructional effort and enthusiasm.

Another common issue is the confounding of lecture format with access to study materials—in studies that contrast PowerPoint with traditional lecturing (e.g., [ 17 – 19 ]), students in the PowerPoint condition (but not the control condition) sometimes have access to PowerPoint slides as study material. This access could bias student motivation, behavior (e.g., attendance), course satisfaction, and performance (see [ 20 ]).

PowerPoint: Performance, perception, and persuasion

Despite their methodological shortcomings, what are the findings of this research literature? The majority of studies examined the use of PowerPoint in higher education and measured both objective and subjective outcomes (see Table 1 ). They typically involved students enrolled in one or more of the researchers’ courses, and contrasted the efficacy of lectures (or whole lecture courses) that used PowerPoint with those that used a more traditional technology (e.g., blackboards, overhead projectors). In terms of student performance, their findings were notably mixed: Of the 28 studies we identified, 17 found no effect of PowerPoint lectures relative to traditional lectures ([ 12 ]: Experiments 1,3; [ 13 , 15 , 21 – 33 ]), 9 found a performance benefit of PowerPoint over traditional instruction ([ 12 ]: Experiment 2; [ 17 – 19 , 34 – 38 ]), and 2 found a performance benefit of traditional over PowerPoint instruction [ 39 , 40 ].

There is near consensus in the literature, however, when it comes student perception: Of the 26 studies we identified, 21 found that students preferred PowerPoint over traditional instruction ([ 12 ]: Experiment 1; [ 13 , 17 – 19 , 21 , 23 , 25 , 26 , 28 , 29 , 31 – 33 , 35 , 39 , 41 – 45 ]), 2 found that students preferred traditional over PowerPoint instruction [ 40 , 46 ], and 3 other studies found no preference for one or the other formats [ 15 , 22 , 37 ]. As one example, Tang and Austin [ 45 ] surveyed 215 undergraduates in business courses about their general perceptions of different lecture formats; on measures of enjoyment, learning, motivation, and career relevance, they found that students rated lectures with PowerPoint slides more favorably than lectures with overheads or without visual aids. An additional 7 studies did not contrast student perceptions of PowerPoint with another technology—they simply surveyed students about PowerPoint; these studies all found that students had, on average, favorable impressions of PowerPoint-based instruction [ 36 , 47 – 52 ].

In addition to these studies of how presentation software impacts student performance and perception, two studies examined PowerPoint‘s impact on audience persuasion. Guadagno, Sundie, Hardison, and Cialdini [ 53 ] argue that we heuristically use a presentation’s format to evaluate its content, particularly when we lack the expertise to evaluate the content on its merits. To test this hypothesis, they presented undergraduates with key statistics about a university football recruit and asked them to evaluate the recruit’s career prospects. The same statistics were presented in one of three formats: a written summary, a graphical summary via printed-out PowerPoint slides, or a graphical summary via animated PowerPoint slides (self-advanced by the participant). Participants shown the computer-based PowerPoint presentation tended to rate the recruit more positively than other participants, and there was some evidence that this effect was more pronounced for football novices than for experts. The findings of this study suggest that some presentation formats may be more persuasive than others, perhaps because audience members conflate a sophisticated medium with a sophisticated message.

In the second study to examine the impact of PowerPoint on persuasion, Park and Feigenson [ 54 ] examined the impact of video-recorded presentations on mock juror decision-making. Participants were more persuaded by attorneys on either side of a liability case when the attorney used PowerPoint slides as opposed to merely oral argument. They also remembered more details from PowerPoint than oral presentations, and evaluated both attorneys as more persuasive, competent, credible, and prepared when they presented with PowerPoint. Based on mediation analyses, the researchers argue that the decision-making benefit of PowerPoint results from both deliberative and heuristic processing (“slow” and “fast” thinking, respectively, see [ 55 ]).

Both of these studies, however, share the methodological limitations of the educational research on PowerPoint. The first study [ 53 ] used only one PowerPoint presentation, and the second [ 54 ] used only two. The presentations used were not selected at random from a larger stimulus pool but instead were created by researchers who hypothesized that PowerPoint would enhance presentations. But even if the presentations had been sampled randomly, the sample is too small to allow one to generalize to a broader population. In studying performance, perception, or persuasion, one cannot reasonably assume that all presentation effects are equal.

Prezi: A zoomable user interface

Released in 2009, Prezi has received generally favorable reviews by researchers, educators, and professional critics [ 56 – 60 ]. With a purported 75 million users worldwide, it is increasingly popular but still an order of magnitude less so than PowerPoint (with as many as one billion users; [ 61 ]). Like PowerPoint and other slideware, Prezi allows users to arrange images, graphics, text, audio, video and animations, and to present them alongside aural narration to an in-person or remote audience. In contrast to PowerPoint and other slideware in which users create presentations as a deck of slides, Prezi users create presentations on a single visuospatial canvas. In this regard, Prezi is much like a blackboard and chalk. But unlike a physical blackboard, the Prezi canvas is infinite (cf. [ 62 ]) and zoomable: in designing presentations, users can infinitely expand the size of their canvas and can zoom in or out. When presenting, users define paths to navigate their audience through the map-like presentation, zooming and panning from a fixed-angle overhead view.

Like Google Maps or modern touchscreens, Prezi is an example of what scholars of human-computer interaction label a zoomable user interface (ZUI). These interfaces are defined by two features: They present information in a theoretically infinite two-dimensional space (i.e., an infinite canvas) and they enable users to animate this virtual space through panning and zooming. Some of the original ZUIs were used to visualize history, navigate file systems, browse images, and—in the Prezi predecessor CounterPoint—create presentations [ 63 , 64 ].

As communication and visualization tools, ZUIs in general and Prezi in particular are interesting psychologically for several reasons. First, they may take advantage of our mental and neural architecture, specifically the fact that we process information through dissociable visual and spatial systems. Whereas the so-called “ventral” visual system in the brain processes information such as shape and color, the “dorsal” spatial system processes information such as location and distance [ 65 – 68 ]. When working in concert, these systems result in vastly better memory and comprehension than when they work in isolation. For example, in the classic “method of loci” individuals visualize objects in specific locations; when later trying to recall the objects, they visualize navigating through the space, “seeing” each object in turn. This method typically doubles retention, compared to other ways of trying to memorize objects [ 69 , 70 ]. Similarly, in research on note-taking, students learned more when they used spatial methods than when they used linear methods (e.g., [ 71 ]). Mayer’s multimedia learning principles and evidence in their favor also highlight the importance of spatial contiguity [ 72 ].

Thus, by encouraging users to visualize and process information spatially, ZUIs such as Prezi may confer an advantage over traditional tools such as PowerPoint that do not encourage such visuospatial integration. As Good and Bederson [ 64 ] write: “Because they employ a metaphor based on physical space and navigation, ZUIs offer an additional avenue for exploring the utilization of human spatial abilities during a presentation.”

Furthermore, ZUIs may encourage a particularly efficacious type of spatial processing, namely graphical processing. In graphical processing, digital objects (or groups of objects) are not just arranged in space, they are arranged or connected in a way makes their interrelationships explicit. Randomly placing animal stickers on a blank page, for example, engages mere spatial processing; drawing connecting lines between animals of the same genus or arranging the animals into a phylogenetic tree, however, engages graphical processing. Because ZUIs force users to “see the big picture,” they may prompt deeper processing than software that segments content into separate spatial canvases. By facilitating such processing, ZUIs may leverage the same learning benefits of concept maps and other graphical organizers, which have been studied extensively. For example, in their meta-analysis of the use of concept maps in education, Nesbit and Adesope [ 73 ] found that these graphical representations (especially when animated) were more effective than texts, lists, and outlines. By requiring one to organize the whole presentation on a single canvas instead of a slide deck, therefore, Prezi may prompt presenters (and their audiences) to connect component ideas with each other, contextualize them in a larger narrative, and remember, understand, and appreciate this larger narrative. Slideware, on the other hand, may do just the opposite:

PowerPoint favours information that can be displayed on a single projected 4:3 rectangle. Knowledge that requires more space is disadvantaged … How to include a story on a slide? Distributing the associated text over several slides literally breaks it into fragments, disturbing its natural cohesion and thus coherence … PowerPoint renders obsolete some complex narrative and data forms in favour of those that are easily abbreviated or otherwise lend themselves to display on a series of slides [ 74 ] (p399)

Of course these arguments are speculative, and one can also speculate on the psychological costs of ZUI or benefits of standard slideware. Perhaps PowerPoint does confer some of same spatial processing benefits of Prezi—after all, slides are spatial canvases, and they must be arranged to form a narrative—but in a way that better manages the limited attentional resources of the presenter or audience. Our point here is simply that Prezi, as a ZUI presentation tool, offers a psychologically interesting alternative to standard deck-based slideware, with a range of possible advantages that could be explored empirically to discover the psychological mechanisms of effective communication.

Like the PowerPoint literature, most of the published literature on Prezi is limited to observational reports or case studies. Brock and Brodahl [ 75 ] evaluated Prezi favorably based on their review and students’ ratings of course presentations. Conboy, Fletcher, Russell, and Wilson [ 76 ] interviewed 6 undergraduates and 3 staff members about their experiences with Prezi in lecture instruction and reported generally positive experiences. Masood and Othman [ 77 ] measured the eye movements and subjective judgments of ten participants who viewed a single Prezi presentation; participants attended to the presentation’s text more than to its other components (e.g., images, headings), and favorably judged the presentation. Ballentine [ 78 ] assigned students to use Prezi to design text adventure games and reported benefits of using the medium. Two other studies [ 79 , 80 ] surveyed college students about their course experiences with Prezi, and both reported similarly positive perceptions.

All of these studies, however, suffer from major demand characteristics, due to the fact that the researchers observed or asked leading questions of their own students about their own instruction (e.g., “Do you find lectures delivered with Prezi more engaging then[sic] other lectures?”, from [ 79 ]). Moreover, all suffer from the methodological limitations discussed earlier.

Other literature that addresses Prezi is purely theoretical and speculative: In discussing the pedagogical implications of various presentation software, Harris [ 81 ] mostly just describes Prezi’s features, but does suggest that some of these features provide useful visual metaphors (e.g., zooming in to demonstrate otherwise hidden realities). Bean [ 82 ] offers a particularly compelling analysis of PowerPoint and Prezi’s histories, user interfaces, and visual metaphors, and argues that Prezi is the optimal tool for presenting certain types of information (e.g., wireflow diagrams).

The experimental literature on Prezi is limited to three published studies. Castelyn, Mottart and Valcke [ 14 ] investigated whether a Prezi e-lecture with graphic organizers (e.g., concepts maps) was more effective than a PowerPoint e-lecture without graphic organizers. Claiming that Prezi encourages the use of graphic organizers, they purposefully confounded the type of presentation software with the presence of graphic organizers. Undergraduates randomly assigned to the different e-lectures did not differ in their knowledge or self-efficacy gains, but did prefer the graphically-organized Prezi lecture over the PowerPoint control lecture. In a follow-up study [ 83 ], the same researchers assigned undergraduates to create Prezi presentations that did or did not use graphic organizers, and found no effects of this manipulation on students’ self-reported motivation or self-efficacy. Chou, Chang, and Lu [ 24 ] compared the effects of Prezi, PowerPoint and traditional blackboard instruction on 5 th graders’ learning of geography. Whereas the Prezi group performed better than the control group (which received blackboard instruction) in formative quizzes and a summative test, the PowerPoint group did not; however, on a delayed summative test, both Prezi and PowerPoint students performed better than those in the control group. In direct comparisons of PowerPoint and Prezi, there were no differences in any of the learning measures. Taken together, the studies are not just limited in number: They present uncompelling findings and suffer from the same methodological shortcomings of the PowerPoint research.

The current study

In short, the extant literature does not clarify whether presenters should present with or without visual aids—and, if the latter, whether they should use standard deck-based slideware such as PowerPoint or a ZUI such as Prezi. One of the reasons why these basic questions remain unanswered is the methodological challenges inherent in comparing different presentation formats. We designed the current study to overcome these challenges.

To control for individual differences among presenters, we randomly assigned presenters to different presentation conditions. To control for individual differences among audience members, we used a counterbalanced, within-participants design for the first experiment, and between-participants random assignment in the second experiment. And to draw general inferences about the impact of presentation format—instead of specific inferences about particular presenters or presentations—we sampled from a large number of presentations, each created by a different presenter. Our methods have their own challenges, such as recruiting participants sufficiently trained in all presentation methods, allowing presenters adequate preparation time and context, approximating the psychological conditions of real-world presentations, and measuring the “signal” of presentation format among the added “noise” of so many presenters and presentations. In addition, the studies had to be double-blind: Neither presenters nor audience members could be aware of any hypotheses, and had to be free from any sorts of confirmation bias conveyed by the investigators.

To focus on presentations as a form of presenter-audience communication and limit the number of confounded variables, we purposefully controlled for other possible impacts of presentation software on professional practices or outcomes, including 1) the use of presentation artifacts (e.g., PowerPoint files, printed-out slides, online Prezis), and 2) facilitated collaboration among presentation designers. Unlike other research (e.g., [ 32 , 33 ]) we did allow for the possibility that presentation format not only affects how audiences perceive presentations, but also how presenters design or deliver them (e.g., by increasing their conceptual understanding of the topic, or decreasing their cognitive load during live narration; cf. [ 84 ]). In other words, presentation technologies might affect the cognition of both the audience and the presenter, so we designed the present studies to accommodate both sets of mechanisms.

To maximize the real-world relevance of this research, we relied on multimedia case materials from Harvard Business School [ 85 ]; these materials recreate the actual professional circumstances in which presentations are typically used. Because presentations are designed commonly both to inform and convince audiences, we examine outcome measures of learning as well as persuasion. And to minimize demand characteristics, we avoided the typical flaws of existing research (e.g., researcher-designed presentations, the researchers’ students as research participants) and adopted several countermeasures (e.g., recruitment language and participant instructions that obscured the research hypotheses, between-participant manipulation).

We adopted a two-phased approach in this research. In the first phase, participants with sufficient experience in oral, PowerPoint, and Prezi presentation formats were randomly assigned to create a presentation in one of those formats. We provided the necessary context, instruction, and time to create a short but realistic presentation. Participants then presented live to an actual audience, who judged each presentation’s efficacy. In the second phase, recorded versions of these presentations were presented to a larger online audience, affording us greater statistical power and allowing us to measure the impact of presentation format on decision-making and learning.

Experiment 1

Participants.

We recruited presenter participants via online postings (on Craigslist, the Harvard Psychology Study Pool, the Harvard Decision Science Lab Study Pool), email solicitations to the local Prezi community, and campus flyers. To create the fairest comparison between PowerPoint and Prezi, we recruited individuals who “have expertise in using both PowerPoint and Prezi presentation software.” Interested individuals were directed to a prescreening survey in which they reported their experience with and preference for giving different types of presentations. Only individuals who reported that they were “not at all experienced” with PowerPoint, Prezi or giving oral presentations were excluded from research participation. Out of the 681 respondents who completed the prescreening survey, 456 of them were eligible and invited to sign up for an available timeslot. Out of this group, 146 individuals—105 from the Harvard study pools, 33 from Craigslist, and 8 from the Prezi community—participated as presenters in the study and were compensated $40 for approximately two hours of their time. There were no significant differences between the three presentation groups on any demographics variables.

We also recruited 153 audience participants from the Harvard Decision Science Lab Study Pool and Craigslist using the following announcement:

Do you use Skype? Does your computer have a large screen (13 inches or larger)? If so, you may be eligible to participate in a 45 minute long online study. In this study, you will watch professional presentations over Skype from home on your personal computer.

Anyone who responded to the recruitment notice was eligible, provided that they were available during one of the prescheduled testing sessions. Audience participants were compensated $10 for approximately 45 minutes of their time. Table 2 presents demographic information for the presenter and audience participants. This study was approved by the Harvard Committee on the Use of Human Subjects (Study #IRB14-1427), and all participants in both experiments provided written consent.

Note: Unless otherwise noted, numbers refer to the number of participants in each category. Two presenter participants did not report their educational level, and four did not report their occupation. Demographic data from one audience participant is missing due to a coding error.

Presenter procedure

Presenter participants completed a survey remotely before attending the in-person, group sessions with other participants. In the online pre-survey, presenters first answered basic demographic questions (gender, age, education level, English fluency, and occupation). Next, they answered questions about their prior experience with, opinions about, and understanding of the different presentation formats (oral, Prezi, and PowerPoint). This section was prefaced with the following note:

A note on language: When we use the term "presentation," we mean a formal, planned, and oral presentation of any duration, including a public speech, an academic lecture, a webinar, a class presentation, a wedding toast, a sermon, a product demonstration, a business presentation, and so on. Examples of things we do NOT mean are: a theatrical performance, an impromptu toast at dinner, and any presentation with no audience. When we say PowerPoint presentations, we mean presentations that were made using Microsoft PowerPoint, not other software such as Apple's Keynote. When we say Prezi presentations, we mean presentations that were made using Prezi presentation software. Also, when we refer to "oral presentation", we mean a presentation that is only spoken and does not include any visual aids or the use of presentation software.

Participants were asked the following questions for each type of presentation:

• How experienced are you at making the following types of presentations? [5-level rating]
• When you give a presentation, how effective are the following types of presentations for you? [5-level rating, with “not applicable” option]
• When somebody else gives a presentation, how effective are the following types of presentations for you? [5-level rating, with “not applicable” option]
• How difficult is it for you to make the following types of presentations? [5-level rating, with “not applicable” option]
• In the last year, approximately how many of the following types of presentations did you make? [free response]
• In your lifetime, approximately how many of the following types of presentations have you made? [free response]
• For approximately how many years have you been making the following types of presentations? [free response]

As part of the expertise-related measures, we also asked the participants to identify the purported advantages and disadvantages of each presentation format, according to its proponents and critics, respectively. For PowerPoint and Prezi, we asked participants to identify whether or not it had particular functionalities (e.g., the capacity to record narration, create custom backgrounds, print handouts). Finally, participants viewed three sets of four short Prezi presentations and rank-ordered them from best to worst. In each set we manipulated a key dimension of Prezi effectiveness, according to its designers: the use of zooming, the connection of ideas, and the use of visual metaphor.

Presenter participants were tested in person at the Harvard Decision Science Lab, and randomly assigned to one of the three groups: Prezi, PowerPoint, or oral presentation. A total of 50 data collection sessions were held. In each session, there were typically three presenter participants (one for each presentation format); as a result of participants who failed to arrive or overbooking, there were ten sessions with only two presenters and six sessions with four presenters.

After providing informed consent, participants completed an online survey (in the lab) in which they rank-ordered three sets of recorded example PowerPoint and oral presentations. Identical in form to the example Prezi presentations they judged in the pre-survey, these short presentations were designed to assess their understanding of effective presentation design by manipulating a key aspect specific to each format. For PowerPoint presentations, we manipulated the use of text, use of extraneous “bells and whistles,” and graph design; for oral presentations, the three dimensions were verbal behavior, nonverbal behavior (other than eye contact), and eye contact. In selecting these dimensions (and those for Prezi), we consulted with a variety of experts, including software designers, speaking coaches, and researchers.

Next, presenters were shown material from a multimedia case created for and used by the Harvard Business School. Specifically, they were told the following (the company featured in the business case will be referred to anonymously here as “Company X” to respect their contractual agreement with the school):

For the next two hours, you are going to pretend to be the chief marketing officer of i-Mart, a large chain of retail stores. i-Mart recently made an offer to [Company X] to sell their products in i-Mart stores. Your boss, the CEO of i-Mart, has asked you to make a presentation to [Company X]’s leadership that persuades them to accept i-Mart’s offer. In your presentation, you will need to argue that accepting i-Mart’s offer is in [Company X]’s strategic interests, and address any concerns they may have about how accepting the offer might affect their corporate identity.

As a participant in this study, your primary job today is to prepare and then deliver this presentation. The presentation will be very short (less than 5 minutes) and made live (via Skype) to an audience of participants who are playing the part of [Company X] executives. Before you start planning your presentation, you will first learn more about [Company X] and how they’re thinking about i-Mart’s offer.

On their own computer workstation, participants studied the multimedia case for 30 minutes and were invited to take notes on blank paper provided for them. The multimedia case material included video and textual descriptions of Company’s X’s corporate culture, business model, and constituent communities.

Following this study period, participants were given 45 minutes to create a presentation in one of three randomly assigned presentation formats: PowerPoint, Prezi, or oral. To assist participants in the PowerPoint and Prezi conditions, we provided them with a set of digital artifacts including text, data, and graphics related to the case. Participants were not told that other participants were asked to present in different formats, and the workstations were separated from each other to prevent participants from discovering this manipulation.

After this preparation period, participants were taken individually (in a counterbalanced order) to another room to present to a live audience via Skype. For PowerPoint and Prezi presentations, we shared each participant’s presentation with the audience via screen sharing; thus they viewed both the presenter and the presentation. For those presenters who consented, we also recorded their presentations for future research purposes. After making their presentations, presenters completed a final survey about their presentation (e.g., “How convincing do you think your presentation will be to [Company X’s] board members”), the corporate scenario (e.g., What do you think [Company X] should do?”), and their presentation format (e.g., “How likely are you to recommend the presentation tool or presentation format you used to others to make professional presentations?”).

Audience procedure

Audience participants completed the entire experiment remotely and online. Their participation was scheduled for the end of the presenter sessions so that the in-lab presenters could present live to a remote audience via Skype. We recruited between three and six audience participants per session, although participants who failed to arrive or Skype connectivity issues resulted in some sessions with only one or two audience participants: Five sessions had one participant, twelve sessions had two participants, sixteen sessions had three participants, eleven sessions had four participants, four sessions had five participants, and two sessions had six participants.

Individuals who responded to the recruitment notice completed a consent form and three online surveys prior to their scheduled Skype session. The first survey was a slightly modified form of the presenter pre-survey (demographics, background on presentation formats, rank-ordering of example Prezis) in which they also scheduled their Skype session. In the second survey, audience participants were told that they were “going to play the role of a corporate executive listening to several short business presentations,” and that their task was “to evaluate the quality of these presentations, each made by another participant engaged in a similar role-playing scenario.” They were then shown a brief video and textual description of the fictionalized corporate scenario (an abridged version of what presenter participants studied), and told the following:

You are a board member for [Company X], an innovative clothing company. Another company, i-Mart, wants to sell [Company Y’s products] in its stores. You and your fellow board members must decide whether or not to accept i-Mart's offer.

And in the third survey they rank-ordered the three sets of recorded example PowerPoint and oral presentations.

At the time of the scheduled session, the audience participants logged into Skype using a generic account provided by the research team, and were instructed to turn on their webcams and put on headphones. Once the first presenter participant was ready to present, the experimenter initiated the group Skype call, confirmed that the software was functioning properly, invited the presenter into the room to begin, left the room before the start of the presentation, monitored the presentation remotely via a closed-circuit video feed, and re-entered the room at the presentation’s conclusion. For Prezi and PowerPoint presentations, Skype’s built-in screen-sharing function was used to share the visual component of the presentation; audience participants viewing these presentations were instructed to use the split-screen view, with windows of equal size showing the presenter and the accompanying visuals.

Immediately after viewing each presentation, participants evaluated it via an online survey. They rated each presentation on how organized, engaging, realistic, persuasive, and effective it was using a five-level scale with response options of not at all , slightly , somewhat , very , and extremely . They were also invited to offer feedback to the presenter on how the presentation could be improved. After the final presentation, participants rank-ordered the presentations on the same dimensions (e.g., effectiveness, persuasiveness). Halfway through the experiment we added a final question in which we asked participants to rank-order PowerPoint, Prezi, and oral presentation formats “in terms of their general effectiveness, ignoring how well individual presenters (including today's) use that format,” and to explain their rank-ordering.

Prior experience and pre-existing beliefs

Participants’ prior experience with and pre-existing beliefs about each presentation format provide a baseline that informs the research findings. If presenter participants had more experience with and more positive beliefs about one format than the others—and those assigned to that format induced more positive assessments from the audience members than did those assigned to the other formats—then the results are less compelling than if there was no correlation between these baseline measures and the experimental outcomes. The same applies to audience participants: Are they merely judging presentations according to their initial biases? Conversely, the results are most compelling if there is a negative association between the baseline measures and the experimental findings. For this reason—and to check that presenters assigned to the different formats did not happen to differ in these baseline measures—we analyzed participants’ prior experience with and pre-existing beliefs about PowerPoint, Prezi, and oral presentation formats.

Both audience and presenter participants were least experienced with Prezi and most experienced with oral presentations. At the outset, they rated PowerPoint as the most effective and easiest to use to present material and Prezi as the least effective and most difficult to use to present. For watching presentations, audience participants rated PowerPoint most effective and oral presentations least effective, but rated Prezi as more enjoyable than other formats. For watching presentations, presenter participants did not find any format more effective than the others. Table 3 presents full descriptive and inferential statistics for all self-reported measures of prior experience with and preexisting beliefs about Prezi, PowerPoint, and oral presentations.

Note: F -statistics and p -values are from one-way ANOVAs with Presentation Format as the within-participant factor; for items with significant non-sphericity, we adjusted the dfs as necessary and confirmed the results with non-parametric Friedman tests. For rating items in which participants could indicate “Not applicable (I have never seen/given this type of presentation)”, the reported means, F -statistics, sample sizes, and p -values include only data from participants who did not select this response option; no presenter participants selected this response option. For rating items, post-hoc inferences are drawn from Fisher’s LSD tests (using all available data); for frequency items, post-hoc inferences are drawn from non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank tests due the skewed distributions and presence of outliers.

Presenters assigned to different formats did not differ in their experience with or pre-existing beliefs about presentations formats. They also did not differ in how well they identified the purported advantages and disadvantages of each presentation format, how well they identified the software features of PowerPoint and Prezi, or how accurately they could identify effective presentations of each format.

Audience ratings

In term of their prior experience with and pre-existing beliefs about presentation formats, both audience and presenter participants were biased in favor of oral and PowerPoint presentations and against Prezi. After presenters were randomly assigned to these different formats, how did the audience evaluate their presentations?

In examining how presentation format affected the audience’s ratings of the presentations, two complications arose. First, sessions with two presentations were missing one presentation format, and sessions with four presentations had two presentations of the same format. To address this complexity we only conducted pairwise comparisons of different formats (e.g., PPT versus oral) instead of omnibus tests, and—for those sessions with four presentations—we averaged ratings for the two same-format presentations. To be certain that the differing number of presentations per session did not somehow bias the results even after adopting these measures, we also conducted an analysis on the subset of sessions that had exactly three presentations.

Second, the number of audience participants per session ranged from one to six. In calculating descriptive statistics, some sessions would be weighted more heavily than others unless ratings were first averaged across participants within the same session, then averaged across sessions. In calculating inferential statistics, averaging across ratings from different participants within the same session who received presentations in the same format was necessary to ensure that the sampling units were independent of each other, an assumption of all parametric and most nonparametric tests. In other words, for both descriptive and inferential statistics, we treated session (instead of participant) as the sampling unit.

As an empirical matter, this multi-step averaging—within participants across identical presentation formats, then across participants within the same session—had little impact on the condition means (i.e., the average ratings of PowerPoint, Prezi, or oral presentations on each dimension). Compared to the simplest, raw averaging of all ratings in one step, the maximum absolute difference between these two sets of means was .07 (on a 1–5 scale) and the mean absolute difference was .04.

To test whether the presentations’ format affected their ratings, therefore, we conducted paired t -tests for each rating dimension, with presentation format as the repeated measure and mean session rating as the dependent variable. Because we conducted three tests for each dimension—pairing each format with every other—we controlled for multiple comparisons by dividing our significance threshold by the same factor (i.e., α = .05/3 = .017). Results revealed that presentation format influenced audience ratings. In particular, the audience rated Prezi presentations as significantly more organized, engaging, persuasive, and effective than both PowerPoint and oral presentations; on a five-level scale, the average participant rated Prezi presentations over half a level higher than other presentations. The audience did not rate PowerPoint presentations differently than oral presentations on any dimension. Table 4 and Fig 1 present these results.

Note: Because some sessions only had two presentations (i.e., Prezi and PPT, Prezi and Oral, or PPT and Oral), the mean ratings for the same format vary slightly across pairwise comparisons. The p -values are uncorrected for multiple comparisons; instead we used a corrected significance threshold of α = .05/3 = .017.

Audience members rated presentations on each dimension on a 5-level scale (1 = “not at all,” 5 = “extremely”). The figure shows session-level means from all available data, including those from sessions with two or four presentations.

By limiting the analysis to the 34 sessions with exactly three presentations (one of each format), we could ensure that the sessions with two or four presentations did not somehow bias the results. Moreover, this procedure enabled us to conduct omnibus tests of presentation format for each rating dimension. These omnibus tests revealed significant effects for organization, F (2,66) = 12.9, p < .0001, engagement, F (2,66) = 4.6, p = .01, persuasion, F (2,66) = 3.9, p = .03, and effectiveness, F (2,66) = 7.2, p = .001. The results from post-hoc tests (Fisher’s LSD) aligned with the original pairwise comparisons: On all dimensions, the audience rated Prezi presentations higher than PowerPoint and oral presentations, p s < .05; PowerPoint and oral presentations were not rated differently on any dimension, p s>.05. (Note: All p -values for pairwise tests here and elsewhere are two-tailed.)

To explore whether the obtained results were somehow the result of demand characteristics, we analyzed ratings from only the first presentation in each session. This analysis yielded the same pattern of findings, with a to-be-expected reduction in statistical significance due to the loss of power. On all four dimensions, a one-way, independent-measures ANOVA yielded significant or marginally-significant results: organized, F (2,49) = 5.1, p = .01; engaging, F (2,49) = 2.5, p = .09; persuasive, F (2,49) = 2.6, p = .09; and effective, F (2,49) = 5.8, p = .006. In all cases, Prezi was rated higher than oral and PowerPoint presentations (post-hoc LSD p s ≤.08).

On average, the audience rated the presentations as realistic, with a modal rating of “very realistic.” Our intent in including this rating dimension was merely to verify that our experimental protocol resulted in realistic rather than contrived presentations; we therefore did not test for differences in these ratings as a function of group differences.

Audience rankings

As just noted, participants randomly assigned to present using Prezi were rated as giving more organized, engaging, persuasive, and effective presentations compared to those randomly assigned to the PowerPoint or oral presentation conditions. In addition, at the end of each session audience participants rank-ordered each type of presentation on the same dimensions used for the ratings. Here we ask: Did the audiences’ rank-orderings align with the ratings?

The same complexities with the ratings data—the variable number of conditions and audience participants per session—applied as well to the ranking data. We therefore adopted a similar analytic strategy, with one exception: we conducted non-parametric rather than parametric pairwise tests, given the rank-ordered nature of the raw data and distributional assumptions that underlie parametric tests.

Using the session-level mean ranks, we tested the effect of presentation format with three sets of Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. The results had the identical pattern as those from the ratings data: the audience rated Prezi presentations as significantly more organized, engaging, persuasive, and effective than both PowerPoint and oral presentation (all p s ≤ .006); the audience did not rate PowerPoint presentations differently than oral presentations on any dimension. Table 5 and Fig 2 present these results.

Note: Because some sessions only had two presentations (i.e., Prezi and PPT, Prezi and Oral, or PPT and Oral), the mean ratings for the same format vary slightly across pairwise comparisons. We did not add the rank-ordering until the third session, hence two sessions have missing data. All inferential statistics are from Wilcoxon signed-ranked tests. The p-values are uncorrected for multiple comparisons; instead we used a corrected significance threshold of α = .05/3 = .017.

Audience members ranked the presentations from best to worst, with lower ranks indicating better presentations. The figure shows session-level means from all available data, including those from sessions with two or four presentations.

As with the ratings data, we also conducted omnibus tests of only those sessions with exactly three presentations to validate that unbalanced sessions did not somehow bias the results. These tests (Friedman ANOVAs) revealed significant effects for organization, exact p = .0005, engagement, exact p = .04, and effectiveness, exact p = .003; we found only a marginally significant effect for persuasion, exact p = .08. Post-hoc tests (Fisher’s LSD) showed that the audience ranked Prezi presentations higher than PowerPoint and oral presentations on all dimensions, p s < .05; PowerPoint and oral presentations were not ranked differently on engagement, persuasion, or effectiveness, p s>.05, but the audience did rank PowerPoint presentations as more organized than oral presentations, p = .04.

Audience omnibus judgments of effectiveness

Before and after the experimental session, audience participants judged the general effectiveness of the three presentation formats. In the pre-survey, they rated each format on its effectiveness for them as presenters and audience members. In the post-survey, they rank-ordered the formats on their “general effectiveness” and were instructed to ignore “how well individual presenters (including today's) use that format.” Although the pre- and post-questions differed in their phrasing and response formats, they nonetheless afford us an opportunity to investigate if and how their judgments changed over the course of the experiment.

As already described (see Table 3 ), the audience began the experiment judging PowerPoint presentations as most effective for presenters and audiences. They ended the experiment, however, with different judgments of efficacy: A majority (52%) ranked Prezi presentations as the most effective, a majority (57%) ranked oral presentations as least effective, and a plurality (49%) ranked PowerPoint presentations second in effectiveness. A Friedman’s ANOVA test (on the mean rankings) confirmed that participants rated presentation formats differently, exact p = .00007. Post hoc analysis with Wilcoxon signed-rank tests revealed that the audience ranked both Prezi and PowerPoint presentations as more effective than oral presentations, ps ≤.003). They did not rank Prezi and PowerPoint presentations significantly differently ( p = .15). Fig 3 presents these results.

Note: Means shown from pre-survey items are calculated based on responses from all participants (as opposed to only those who had experience with all presentation formats).

In the pre-survey, some audience participants reported prior experience viewing Prezi presentations but others did not (i.e., those who selected the “not applicable” response option). Compared to participants with no prior experience watching Prezi presentations ( n = 34), participants with prior Prezi experience ( n = 117) rated PowerPoint presentations (but not oral presentations) as less effective, t (149) = 2.7, p = .007, mean difference = .47, and less enjoyable for them, t (149) = 2.9, p = .004, mean difference = .53. Thus, prior experience with Prezi was associated with negative pre-existing judgments of PowerPoint.

Audience correlates of presentation ratings and rankings

What, if any, individual-level variables—demographics and baseline survey responses—correlated with the audience’s judgments of the presentations? If, for example, the more experience the audience had with Prezi, the worse they evaluated those presentations, such a correlation would suggest that the current findings reflect a novelty effect.

We did not find any significant relationships between the audiences’ prior experience with a given presentation format (presenter experience rating, number of years, number of presentations watched last year or lifetime) and their ratings or rank-orderings of that presentation format on any dimensions, all | r| s < .16. The only pre-existing audience beliefs about the presentation formats (presenter effectiveness, presenter difficulty, audience effectiveness, audience enjoyableness) that correlated with their ratings or rankings were for oral presentations: the more effective participants rated oral presentations for them as audience members before the experiment, the more effective they rated and ranked oral presentations in the experiment as engaging, r = .22 and .26, respectively, p s < .01.

Among demographic variables, only age showed reliable correlations with the audiences’ evaluations of presentations: the older the participant, the more effective they rated PowerPoint presentations, r = .23, p = .007, the more persuasive they ranked PowerPoint presentations, r = .24, p = .006, and the less organized and persuasive they rated oral presentations, r = -.32, p = .001, and r = -.21, p = .01, respectively.

Audience participants’ success in distinguishing better from worse presentations of each format (i.e., their rank-ordering of short expert-created examples) did not correlate with their evaluations of the experimental presentations, nor did it correlate with the audiences’ self-reported experience with each format.

Audience free response

Although we cannot assume that participants understood the reasons behind their rank-orderings (cf. [ 86 ]), their explanations may nonetheless offer some insight into how they perceived different presentation formats. In explaining their rank-ordering of the presentation formats in terms of their general effectiveness, 8% of participants who preferred Prezi mentioned that it was new or different or that PowerPoint presentations were old or outdated . More commonly, they described Prezi as more engaging or interactive (49%), organized (18%), visually interesting , visually compelling , visually pleasing , sleek , or vivid (15%), or creative (13%). Of participants who preferred PowerPoint, 38% described it as more concise , clear , easy to follow , familiar , professional , or organized than the other presentation formats. An equal percentage explained their choice in terms of negative judgments of Prezi, including comments that Prezi was disorienting , busy , crowded , amateurish , or overwhelming . Participants who rank-ordered oral presentations as most effective remarked that they felt more engaged or connected with the presenter, could better give their undivided attention to the presentation (29%), valued the eye contact or face-to-face interaction with the presenter (14%), or found presentation software distracting (14%).

Presenter outcomes and correlates of success

A series of one-way ANOVAs revealed that presentation format did not affect the presenters’ judgments about the business scenario (e.g., “What do you think [Company X] should do?”), self-reported comprehension of the business scenario (“How much do you think you understand the situation with [Company X] and i-Mart?”), or ratings of their own motivation (e.g., “This activity was fun to do”), self-efficacy (e.g., “I think I am pretty good at this activity”), effort (e.g., “I tried very hard on this activity), and effectiveness as presenters (“How convincing do you think your presentation will be to [Company X]’s board members?”); participants using different presentation formats also did not differ in their performance on the multiple-choice test about the business scenario, all p s >.05.

The presenter groups did differ in how inclined they were to recommend their presentation format to others (“How likely are you to recommend the presentation tool or presentation format you used to others to make professional presentations?”), F (2,144) = 4.2, p = .02, with presenters who used Prezi or PowerPoint being more likely to recommend their format than those who made oral presentations, LSD p = .03 and p = .007, respectively.

Presenter variables—including demographic characteristics and experience with their assigned format—generally did not predict their presentation success, either in terms of audience ratings or rankings. The one exception was that Prezi presenters who were better able to identify effective Prezi presentations were rated and ranked as giving more effective and engaging presentations, .008 < p s < .04.

Participants who were randomly assigned to present using Prezi were judged as giving more effective, organized, engaging, and persuasive presentations than those who were randomly assigned to present orally or with PowerPoint. This was true despite the fact that both audience and presenter participants were initially predisposed against Prezi. What might explain these findings?

One explanation is a novelty effect: Perhaps the audience preferred Prezi simply because it is relatively new to them. It appears that this was not the case, however: Only 8% of participants claimed that they preferred Prezi because it was new or different, and there was no significant relationship between the audiences’ experience with Prezi and their ratings or rank-orderings.

Another explanation for these results is that the presenters or audience members were somehow biased towards the Prezi presentations. Again, however, this appears not to be the case. The presenters were least experienced in Prezi, judged themselves least effective presenting with Prezi, and found Prezi presentations hardest to create. We recruited only a small minority (8%) of presenters based on their prior association with Prezi, and used the most conservative exclusion criteria feasible: only individuals without any experience with Prezi or PowerPoint were excluded from participating. All presenters were randomly assigned to their presentation format and were blind to the experimental manipulation. In recruiting audience participants, we did not mention Prezi or PowerPoint, and selected participants only based on their access to Skype and a sufficiently large computer screen. In addition, we minimized contact between the investigator and research participants, and presentations were never identified based on their format; at the end of the experiment, in fact, some participants did not even realize that they had seen a Prezi presentation (as evidenced by their free responses). Data were collected through standardized, online surveys, the investigator was not in the room with the presenter during his or her presentation, and the investigator interacted with the audience only briefly to set up their Skype session. Finally, an analysis of ratings from only the first presentations yielded the same results as the full analysis, making implausible an interpretation based on audience demand characteristics.

Thus, the most likely explanation is that individuals do, in fact, perceive Prezi presentations more favorably than PowerPoint or oral presentation. Experiment 1 has several limitations, however. First, because each audience participant in Experiment 1 was exposed to multiple presentations, we were unable to evaluate presentations on their ultimate goal: to convince the audience (role-playing Company X board members) to accept i-Mart’s business offer. In other words, Experiment 1 demonstrated that Prezi presentations are more effective than other formats in terms of audience perceptions but not decision-making outcomes. Second, we asked the audience about their pre-existing beliefs and prior experiences with PowerPoint, Prezi, and oral presentations at the beginning of the Experiment 1; although it is difficult to imagine how this questioning could have produced the obtained results—particularly given the nature of their pre-existing beliefs and prior experiments—it is a remote possibility. Third, just like the results from any single experiment, the findings of Experiment 1 should be treated cautiously until replicated. We designed a second experiment to address these limitations and extend the findings from the first experiment.

Experiment 2

In Experiment 2 we showed online participants a single presentation from Experiment 1, and varied randomly which type of presentation (Prezi, PowerPoint, or oral) they viewed. We also randomly assigned some participants to view a presentation on material that was not related to the case material; this control condition served as a baseline that allowed us to estimate the impact of each presentation format. To minimize demand characteristics, we asked participants about their experiences with different presentation formats at the conclusion of the experiment (instead of the beginning), and did not expose participants to multiple presentation formats. Finally, to investigate better the nature of participants’ perceptions about presentation effectiveness, we distinguished between perceptions about the presentation, the presenter, and the audiovisual component of the presentation.

We recruited native-English speaking participants via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk using the following language: “In this study, you will read a business case, watch presentations, assume a role, and make a decision.” They were compensated $4 for approximately one hour of their time. Excluding pilot participants who offered us initial feedback on the survey and protocol, 1398 individuals consented to and began the experiment. Of these, 16 participants were excluded because of evidence that they didn’t complete the task properly (e.g., answering a long series of questions identically, incorrectly answering a “trap” question), and 305 were excluded because they dropped out before completing all of the outcome measures, leaving 1069 participants in the final dataset: 272 in the Prezi group, 261 in the PowerPoint group, 275 in the oral presentation group, and 261 in the control group. The number of excluded participants did not covary with group assignment or demographic variables. Table 6 presents demographic information on the included participants.

Note: Unless otherwise stated, numbers refer to number of participants in each category.

The main stimuli for this experiment consisted of recorded presentations from Experiment 1. For Prezi and PowerPoint presentations, these were split-screen videos showing the presenter on one side of the screen and the visuals on the other side. For the oral presentations, these were simply audiovisual recordings of the presenter.

Of the 146 presenter participants from Experiment 1, 33 either did not consent to being video-recorded or were not recorded due to technical difficulties. We therefore had a pool of 113 presentation videos to use for Experiment 2: 41 from the Prezi condition (out of a possible 50), 40 from the PowerPoint condition (out of possible 49), and 32 from the oral presentation condition (out of a possible 47). The proportion of presentations that were video-recorded did not vary with their format, exact p = .61.

Some of the recorded presentations from Experiment 1 were unusable because of intractable quality issues (e.g., inaudible speech, incomplete video, partially occluded presenter), leaving a total of 89 usable videos (34 Prezi, 28 PowerPoint, 27 oral). The proportion of videos removed because of quality issues did not vary with presentation format, exact p = .57.

We randomly selected 25 videos in each format, resulting in a total pool of 75 videos. Because of a URL typo that was not detected until after testing, one PowerPoint video was not presented and participants assigned that video were not able to complete the experiment. Video length varied by format, F (2, 71) = 4.2, p = .02, with PowerPoint and Prezi presentations lasted longer than oral presentations ( M = 5.9, 6.0, and 4.6 minutes, respectively).

We were concerned that we could have, perhaps unconsciously, selected better stimuli in the Prezi condition, which would have biased the results. To ensure that our judgments of major audiovisual problems and subsequent exclusion of some videos were not biased, we recruited a separate group of participants to rate the audiovisual quality of the 113 presentation videos. Using the following language, we recruited 455 individuals from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to serve as judges:

In this study you will judge the technical quality of three short videos. To participate you must have a high-speed Internet connection. We will compensate you $2 for 15–20 minutes of your time.

These participants were totally blind to the experimental hypotheses and manipulation. They completed the audiovisual rating task completely online via the Qualtrics survey platform, and were given the following instructions:

We need your help in determining the audiovisual quality of some Skype presentations we recorded. We want to know which presentations we can use for additional research, and which need to be eliminated due to major technical problems with the recordings. The sorts of technical problems that might exist in some of the videos are: incomplete recordings (the recording starts late or stops early), cropped recordings (the camera isn’t positioned properly), choppy or blurry video, and absent or inaudible audio.

You will watch a single presentation video. Please ignore any aspect of the recording other than its audiovisual quality. In particular, do not base your judgments on the presentation itself, including the presenter’s argument, appearance, or the nature of the accompanying slides. The only thing we care about is whether the audio and video were recorded properly.

Finally, please keep in mind that because these videos were recorded through Skype, even the best recordings are not very high quality.

These judge participants then watched a presentation video (selected at random), rated the quality of its audio and video (on a five-level scale from “very bad” to “very good”), and indicated whether or not there were “any major technical problems with the presentations audio or video”; those who reported major technical problems were asked to identify them.

To address any possibility of experimenter bias—which seemed unlikely, given that we designed the procedure from the outset to guard against such effects—we conducted a series of Presentation Format (Prezi, PowerPoint, oral) x Quality Judgment (inclusion, exclusion) ANOVAs to test 1) whether audiovisual quality was for any reason confounded with presentation format (i.e., the main effect of Presentation Format), 2) whether the excluded videos were indeed lower quality than the included videos (i.e., the main effect of Quality Judgment), and 3) whether our exclusion of videos was biased based on their format (i.e., the interaction between Presentation Format and Audiovisual Quality). We conducted the ANOVAs on the three measures of audiovisual quality collected from the independent judges: ratings of audio quality, ratings of video quality, and judgments of major audiovisual problems.

The results were straightforward: For all three dependent variables, there were no main effects of Presentation Format, p s > .13, but we did find a significant main effect of Quality Judgment (with included videos being judged better quality than excluded videos), all p s < .002, and did not find any interaction effects, all p s > .31. In other words, presentation format was not confounded with audiovisual quality, our judgments of quality corresponded to those of blind judges, and our exclusion of videos was unrelated to presentation format.

Participants completed the experiment entirely online through Qualtrics. After providing informed consent, and answering preliminary demographic and background questions (e.g., about their familiarity with business concepts and practices) they were told the following:

In this part of the study, you are going to play the role of a corporate executive for [Company X], an innovative clothing company. Another company, i-Mart, wants to sell [Company X’s] t-shirts in its many retail stores. You must decide whether or not to accept i-Mart's offer.

To help you make your decision, we will first provide you with some background on [Company X] and the i-Mart offer. You will see a series of short videos and text that describe relevant aspects of [Company X’s] origins, business model, practices, culture, and community. Please review this background material carefully.

Participants were then shown a series of brief video and textual descriptions of the fictionalized corporate scenario, including information on Company X’s business model, business processes, community, and culture. This material was an abridged version of what Experiment 1 presenter participants studied, but an expanded version of what Experiment 1 audience participants studied.

After viewing the multimedia case material, the participants were asked to identify what product Company X sells (a “trap” question to exclude non-serious participants) and to rate the background material on how engaging it was, how much they enjoyed it, how much they paid attention to it, and how difficult it was to understand.

Participants randomly assigned to the Prezi, PowerPoint, and Oral Presentation conditions were then told the following:

Now that you know a little bit about the company, you will watch a video presentation from another research participant. Just as you are playing the role of a [Company X] executive, the other participant is playing the role of i-Mart's Chief Marketing Office (CMO). In this presentation, he or she will try to convince you and your fellow [Company X] executives to accept i-Mart's offer.

Because this presentation is from another research participant playing the role of an i-Mart executive--and not an actual i-Mart executive--please disregard the presenter's appearance (clothing, age, etc). And because we did not professionally videorecord the presentation, please also try to disregard the relatively poor quality of the video compared to the videos you just viewed.

The purpose of this research is to understand what makes presentations effective. So please listen carefully and do your best to imagine that this is "real".

Identically to Experiment 1, participants rated the presentation on how organized, engaging, realistic, persuasive, and effective it was on a five-level scale from “not at all” to “extremely.” Using the same scale, these participants also rated the presenter on how organized, engaging, persuasive, effective, confident, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, professional, nervous, and boring he or she was.

Participants in the Prezi and PowerPoint groups were asked three additional questions. First, they were asked to rate the visual component of the presentation (i.e., the Prezi or the PowerPoint slides) on how organized, engaging, persuasive, effective, dynamic, visually compelling, distracting, informative, distinctive, and boring it was. Second, they were asked to rate whether the presentation had “not enough”, “too much” or an “about right” amount of text, graphs, images, and animations. And finally, there were asked to comment on the visual component of the presentations, including ways in which it could be improved.

All participants then summarized the presentation in their own words, with a minimum acceptable length of 50 characters. Participants were asked to rate how well they understood the “situation with [Company X] and I-Mart,” and to decide whether [Company X] should accept or reject i-Mart’s offer (on a 6-level scale, with the modifiers “definitely,” “probably,” and “possibly”).

In addition, we asked participants a series of recall and comprehension questions about the case. An example recall question is “According to the background materials and the presentation, approximately how many members does [Company X] have?”, with four possible answers ranging from 500,000 to 1.5 million. An example comprehension question is “According to the background materials, what is the biggest challenge [Company X] is facing?”, with possible answers ranging from “marketing” to “logistics.” These comprehension questions were based on the instructor’s guide to the business case material, and included open-ended questions (“Why do you think [Company X] should accept or reject i-Mart's offer?”). At this point we also asked another trap question (“What is 84 plus 27?”).

Finally, and after answering all questions about the business case and presentation, participants answered background questions about their experience with, knowledge of, and general preference for different presentation formats. They also rank-ordered the mini examples of Prezi, PowerPoint, and oral presentations in terms of their effectiveness. These background questions and tasks were the same as those used in Experiment 1.

Participants in the control condition completed the same protocol, with a few exceptions: First, instead of being shown presentations from Experiment 1, they viewed one of three instructional videos (matched for length with the Experiment 1 presentations). Before they viewed these videos they were told “Before you decide what to do about i-Mart's offer to [Company X], we would like you to watch an unrelated presentation and briefly answer some questions about it.” Second, they did not rate how realistic the presentation was, nor did they rate the visual component on how organized, engaging, persuasive, effective, dynamic, visually compelling, distracting, informative, distinctive, and boring it was. And finally, they did not complete the final set of background questions on the different presentation formats or rank-order the example presentations.

At the outset, participants rated oral and PowerPoint presentations as equally effective in general, and Prezi presentations as less effective than the other two formats. Just as we found in Experiment 1, participants rated themselves as more experienced and effective in making and oral and PowerPoint presentations compared to Prezi presentations. They also rated oral and PowerPoint presentations as more enjoyable and effective for them than viewing Prezi presentations. When asked how difficult it was to make the different types of presentations, they rated Prezi as more difficult than oral and PowerPoint presentations, and oral presentations as more difficult than PowerPoint ones. In terms of the number of presentations watched in the last year and in their lifetime—as well as the number of years of experience—they reported more experience watching oral compared to PowerPoint presentations, and more experience watching PowerPoint than watching Prezi presentations. The same pattern was true for their reported experience in making presentations, with one exception: They reported making more PowerPoint than oral presentations in their lifetime. Table 7 presents full descriptive and inference statistics for all self-reported measures of prior experience with and preexisting beliefs about Prezi, PowerPoint, and oral presentations. The experimental groups did not differ significantly on any of these variables.

Note: F -statistics and p -values are from one-way ANOVAs with Presentation Format as the within-participant factor; for items with significant non-sphericity, we adjusted the df s as necessary and confirmed the results with non-parametric Friedman tests. For rating items in which participants could indicate “Not applicable (I have never seen/given this type of presentation),” the reported means, F -statistics, sample sizes, and p -values include only data from participants who did not select this response option. For rating items, post-hoc inferences are drawn from Fisher’s LSD tests (using all available data); for frequency items, post-hoc inferences are drawn from non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank tests due the skewed distributions and presence of outliers.

Most participants (78%) were either “not at all familiar” or “slightly familiar” with Company X, and the modal participant reported being “somewhat experienced” with “concepts and practices from the business world, such as strategy, innovation, product development, sales, and marketing.” The groups did not differ significantly on these variables, nor did they differ on demographic variables such as age, gender, or education.

For overall judgments of the presentations, participants rated Prezi as more organized, effective, engaging, and persuasive than PowerPoint and oral presentations, and rated PowerPoint no differently than oral presentations. They also rated Prezi presenters as more organized, knowledgeable, effective, and professional than PowerPoint presenters and oral presenters; Prezi presenters were not rated differently from other presentations on how nervous, boring, enthusiastic, confident, persuasive, or engaging they were, and PowerPoint presenters were rated no differently than oral presenters on all dimensions. In judging the visual components of the Prezi and PowerPoint presentations, the audience rated Prezi presentations as more dynamic, visually compelling, and distinctive than PowerPoint slides, and marginally more effective and persuasive.

Examining the magnitude of mean differences, some effects are clearly larger than others. Most notably, Prezi presentations are rated as most organized and visually dynamic, and Prezi presenters are rated as most organized. Fig 4 and Table 8 present the descriptive and inferential statistics, respectively, for these audience ratings.

Note: The Prezi vs PPT, Prezi vs oral, and PPT vs oral t -tests have 526, 545, and 534 degrees of freedom, respectively. The p -values are uncorrected for multiple comparisons; instead we used a corrected significance threshold of α = .05/3 = .017.

Note: rating dimensions are ordered by the magnitude of the difference between Prezi and the other presentation formats; for dimensions with no significant differences between presentation formats, only the overall mean is displayed.

The modal participant rated the background case material on Company X as “very engaging” and “completely enjoyable,” reported “mostly” understanding the situation with i-Mart and Company X, and rated the presentations as “very realistic.” Seventy percent of participants expected to do “somewhat well” or “very well” when quizzed about the case. There were no significant group differences on any of these variables.

Audience decision-making

Did the presentations actually influence participants’ core judgment of the business scenario and, if so, was one presentation format more effective than others?

Participants who received a Prezi presentation accepted i-Mart’s offer 53.7% of the time, participants who received a PowerPoint presentation accepted the offer 49.8% of the time, participants exposed to an oral presentation accepted it 45.5% of the time, and participants exposed to the control presentation accepted it 37.5% of the time (see Fig 5 ). In an omnibus test, these differences were significant, exact p = .002. Specific comparisons revealed that Prezi presentations were significantly more influential than control presentations, exact p = 0003, marginally more influential than oral presentations, exact p = .06, and no more influential than PowerPoint presentations, exact p = .39; PowerPoint presentations were significantly more influential than control presentations, exact p = .006, but not oral presentations, exact p = .34; oral presentations were marginally more influential than control presentations, exact p = .07. In order to investigate the impact of presentation software on decision-making, we contrasted the Prezi and PowerPoint groups with the oral presentation groups. We found a marginally significant effect, exact p = .06.

On the whole, therefore, the participants’ decision-making results were concordant descriptively (if not always inferentially) with the rating results.

If participants’ perceptions of the presentations and decisions about the case were both influenced by presentation format, then we would expect them to be associated with each other. And this is indeed what we found. Excluding participants in the control group (who did not make judgments about comparable presentations), those who rejected the i-Mart offer rated presentations as worse than those who accepted the i-Mart offer. This was true for 23 of the 24 rating dimensions (“visually boring” was the exception), with the largest effects for ratings of effectiveness and persuasiveness. Those who rejected the offer rated the overall presentation, visual aids, and presenter as less effective than those who accepted the offer, with effect sizes (Cohen’s d ) of .93, .83, and .78, respectively. These effects were consistent across formats, all interaction p s > .05.

We conducted an analogous set of analyses that preserved the original 6-level scale of the decision variable (“possibly accept,” “probably accept,” “definitely accept,” “possibly reject,” “probably reject,” “definitely reject”). These analyses produced qualitatively identical results, both in terms of decision-making as a function of group assignment and the correlation between decision-making and presentation ratings.

Memory and comprehension

Participants’ performance on the four rote memory questions did not vary across conditions, nor did their correct identification (according to the case designers) of reasons to accept or reject the offer, with one exception: Compared to those in the treatment groups, control participants were more likely to identify Company X’s ability to meet production demand as a reason to reject the i-Mart, omnibus exact p = .00004.

Correlates of presentation outcomes

There were no notable correlations between demographic variables and participants’ ratings or decisions. In particular, participants’ experience with or preexisting beliefs about each presentation format did not correlate with their ratings of the experimental presentations, mirroring the results from Experiment 1 (but with much greater statistical power). Presentation length or recording quality (as assessed by the independent judges) did not correlate with presentation outcomes.

Participants’ success in distinguishing better from worse presentations of each format—that is, their rank-ordering of short expert-created examples—correlated slightly with their evaluations of the presentations. Most notably, the better participants did on the rank-ordering PowerPoint task, the worse they rated PowerPoint (but not Prezi) presentations on visual dimensions; the same was true for the Prezi task and presentations. For example, participants’ performance in the PowerPoint task correlated negatively with their judgments of how “visually dynamic” PowerPoint presentations were, r = -.22, p = .0005, and participants’ performance on the Prezi task correlated negatively with their judgments of how “visually dynamic” Prezi presentations were, r = -.16, p = .009. Thus, individuals with more expertise in PowerPoint and Prezi were more critical of PowerPoint and Prezi presentations, respectively.

Audiovisual attributes of Prezi and PowerPoint presentations

To understand the media attributes and psychological mechanisms that underlie the observed effects of format, we examined how participants’ judgments about amount of text, graphs, animations, and images in the presentations correlated with their judgments of the presentations, the visual component of the presentations, and the presenters themselves. To examine these relationships, we conducted one-way ANOVAs with the various ratings as the dependent variables, and participants’ judgments (“not enough,” “about right,” “too much”) about the amount of text, graphs, animations, and images in the PowerPoint and Prezi presentations as the independent variable. For nearly all (80 of 96) of these ANOVAs, the results were highly significant, p s < .001. In judging the amount of text, participants typically rated “too much” or “not enough” text as worse than an “about right” amount; in judging graphs, images, and animations, participants typically rated “too much” and “just right” both as equally better than “not enough.” Averaging across all rating dimensions, the text and graph effects were over twice as large as the animation and image effects; averaging across all attributes, the effects for visual ratings was over twice as large as the effects for presenter and overall ratings. Participants’ judgments about the media attributes of presentations did, therefore, relate to their overall assessments of the presenters and presentations.

Summing across PowerPoint and Prezi presentations, the modal participant indicated that there was the “about right” amount of text, graphs, animations, and images. Only 21% of participants thought there was not enough or too much text; for the other dimensions, this percentage ranged from 42–51%. More participants indicated that there was not enough text, graphs, and animations in PowerPoint presentations than Prezi presentations, with animation as the most distinguishing attribute. Table 9 presents the descriptive and inferential statistics for these variables.

As shown in Table 10 , participants’ judgments about the audiovisual attributes of the Prezi and PowerPoint presentations were associated with the decision about the business scenario. Individuals who reported that there was not enough text, graph, animation, or images tended to reject the offer for i-Mart, whereas those who reported that there was the “about right” amount of those attributes tended to accept the offer. This effect was particularly pronounced for judgments of graphs and text. Participants who reported too much text also tended to reject the offer.

In sum, participants’ perceptions of presenters and the presentations correlated with their evaluations of the amount of text, graphs, images, and animations that were included in the presentations. Presenters and presentations were rated worse if they had too much or not enough text, and not enough graphs, images, and animations; in terms of audience decision-making, presentations were less effective if they contained too much or not enough text, or not enough graphs, animations, and images. PowerPoint presentations were judged to have too little of all attributes, particularly animation.

Replicating results from Experiment 1, participants rated presentations made with Prezi as more organized, engaging, persuasive, and effective than both PowerPoint and oral presentations. This remained true despite participants’ preexisting bias against Prezi and the different context of Experiment 2: the audience did not view multiple presentations of different formats and presentations were prerecorded instead of live. Extending the Experiment 1 results, participants also judged Prezi presentations as better in various ways (e.g., more visually compelling, more dynamic) than PowerPoint presentations; participants even rated Prezi presenters more highly (e.g., more knowledgeable, more professional) than PowerPoint presenters.

In making decisions as corporate executives, participants were persuaded by the presentations. Compared to the baseline decisions of the control group, those in the treatment group shifted their decisions by 16.2%, 12.3%, and 8.0% depending on whether they viewed Prezi, PowerPoint, or oral presentations, respectively. The non- or marginal significance of some between-format comparisons (e.g., PowerPoint versus Prezi) is difficult to interpret. We hesitate to dismiss these differences as statistical noise given their general alignment with rating results, as well as the correlation between business decisions and presentation ratings (which do vary significantly with format). For the more objective outcome of decision-making, we can, at the very least, provisionally conclude that Prezi presentations are more effective than oral presentations, and that software-aided presentations are more effective than oral presentations.

We did not find any evidence that the presentations affected participants’ memory or understanding of the case, nor did we find evidence that certain presentation formats impacted learning more than others. Given the goals of the presentations and design of the experiment, however, we hesitate to draw any conclusions from these null results.

General discussion

The most important finding across the two experiments is easy to summarize: Participants evaluated Prezi presentations as more organized, engaging, persuasive, and effective than both PowerPoint and oral presentations. This finding was true for both live and prerecorded presentations, when participants rated or ranked presentations, and when participants judged multiple presentations of different formats or only one presentation in isolation. Results from Experiment 2 demonstrate that these presentations influenced participants’ core judgments about a business decision, and suggest that Prezi may benefit both behavioral and experiential outcomes. We have no evidence, however, that Prezi (or PowerPoint or oral presentations) facilitate learning in either presenters or their audience.

Several uninteresting explanations exist for the observed Prezi effects, none of which posit any specific efficacy of Prezi or ZUIs in general: namely, novelty, bias, and experimenter effects. We consider each in turn.

Novelty heavily influences both attention and memory [ 87 , 88 ], and the benefits of new media have sometimes dissipated over time—just as one would expect with novelty effects [ 3 ]. However, we found no evidence that novelty explains the observed benefits of Prezi: Participants who were less familiar with Prezi did not evaluate Prezi presentations more favorably, and only a small fraction of participants who favored Prezi explained their preference in terms of novelty. We therefore are skeptical that mere novelty can explain the observed effects.

We also considered the possibility that participants had a pre-existing bias for Prezi. This seems unlikely because presenter participants were selected based only on minimal experience with both PowerPoint and Prezi and were assigned randomly to the experimental groups; audience participants from both experiments were selected based merely on high-speed internet access, and the words “Prezi” and “PowerPoint” were not used in any audience recruitment material. In fact, both sets of participants entered the research with biases against Prezi, not for Prezi: They reported more experience with PowerPoint and oral presentations than Prezi, and perceived PowerPoint and oral presentations as more (not less) efficacious than Prezi. Thus, we reject the idea that the results simply reflect pre-existing media biases.

For many reasons, we also find it unlikely that experimenter effects—including demand characteristics (i.e., when participants conform to the experimenters’ expectations)—can explain the observed effects. First, at the outset we did not have strong hypotheses about the benefits of one format over the others. Second, the results are subtle in ways that neither we nor a demand characteristics hypothesis would predict: the effects on subjective experience diverged somewhat from the effects on decision-making, and there were no memory or comprehension effects. Third, the between-participants design of Experiment 2 (and between-participants analysis of Experiment 1 ) limited participants’ exposure to a single presentation format, thereby minimizing their ability to discern the experimental manipulation or research hypotheses. Fourth, we ensured that the presentations were equally high-quality; we did not unconsciously select Prezi presentations that happened to be higher quality than presentations in the other formats. Fifth, the random assignment of presenters to format limits the possible confounding of presenter variables with presentation formats or qualities; and no confounding with format was observed in presenters’ preexisting beliefs, prior experience, or demographics. And finally, in Experiment 2 we only explicitly mentioned or asked participants questions about Prezi, PowerPoint, and oral presentations at the conclusion of the experiment, after collecting all key outcome data.

We therefore conclude that the observed effects are not confounds or biases, but instead reflect a true and specific benefit of Prezi over PowerPoint or, more generally, ZUIs over slideware. If, however, these experimental effects merely reveal that Prezi is more user-friendly than PowerPoint—or that PowerPoint’s default templates encourage shallow processing by “[fetishizing] the outline at the expense of the content” [ 89 ] (pB26)—then we have learned little about the practice or psychology of communication. But if these effects instead reflect intrinsic properties of ZUIs or slideware, then they reveal more interesting and general insights about effective communication.

It is difficult to understand Prezi’s benefits in terms of user-friendliness because the odds were so clearly stacked in PowerPoint’s favor. Presenters were much more experienced in using PowerPoint than Prezi and rated PowerPoint as easier to use than Prezi. Especially given the task constraints—participants only had 45 minutes to prepare for a 5-minute presentation on a relatively new, unfamiliar topic—Prezi’s user interface would have to be improbably superior to PowerPoint’s interface to overcome these handicaps. Moreover, participants’ prior experience with PowerPoint or Prezi did not correlate with their success as presenters, as one would expect under an ease-of-use explanation. Finally, audience participants did not simply favor the Prezi presentations in an even, omnibus sense—they evaluated Prezi as better in particular ways that align with the purported advantages of ZUIs over slideware. This pattern of finding makes most sense if the mechanism were at the level of media, not software.

Participants’ evaluations of Prezi were particularly telling in three ways. First, in participants’ own words (from Experiment 1 ), they frequently described Prezi as engaging , interactive , visually compelling , visually pleasing , or vivid , and PowerPoint as concise , clear , easy to follow , familiar , professional , or organized . Second, in participants’ ratings (from Experiment 2 ), the visuals from Prezi presentations were evaluated as significantly more dynamic, visually compelling, and distinctive than those from PowerPoint presentations. And third, in judging the audiovisual attributes of presentations, participants’ identified animations as both the attribute most lacking in presentations and the attribute that most distinguished Prezi from PowerPoint; furthermore, the more a presentation was judged as lacking animation, the worse it was rated. Taken together, this evidence suggests that Prezi presentations were not just better overall, but were better at engaging visually with their audience through the use of animation. Because ZUIs are defined by their panning and zooming animations—and animation is an ancillary (and frequently misused) feature of slideware—the most parsimonious explanation for the present results is in terms of ZUIs and slideware in general, not Prezi and PowerPoint in particular. The medium is not the message, but it may be the mechanism.

The animated nature of ZUIs makes more sense as possible mechanism for the observed effects when one considers relevant literature on animation. Past research has shown that animation can induce physiological and subjective arousal (e.g., [ 90 , 91 ]) and facilitate attention, learning, and task performance (e.g., [ 92 – 94 ]; but see also [ 95 , 96 ]). Most pertinently, people appear to prefer animated media over static media. Participants rate animated online advertisements as more enjoyable, persuasive, effective, and exciting than static online advertisements [ 97 , 98 ], animated websites as more likeable, engaging, and favorable than static websites [ 99 ], and animated architectural displays as clearer than static displays [ 100 ]. In an experiment of online academic lectures, participants preferred whiteboard-style animations over a slideware-style version matched for both visual and audio content [ 101 ]. Moreover, ZUI’s use of animation aligns with recommended principles for using animation effectively in presentations, which include the creation of a large virtual canvas and the use of zooming to view detail [ 102 ]. Slideware, on the other hand, encourages the use of superfluous animation in slide transitions and object entrances/exits, despite evidence that adding such “seductive details” to multimedia presentations can be counterproductive [ 72 ].

Therefore, we not only conclude that audiences prefer Prezi over PowerPoint presentations, but also conclude that their preference is rooted in an intrinsic attribute of ZUIs: panning and zooming animations. Compared to slideware’s sequential, linear transitions (and oral presentations’ total lack of visual aids), zooming and panning over a virtual canvas is a more engaging and enjoyable experience for an audience.

From this perspective, the reason that participants rated Prezi presentations as more persuasive, effective, and organized than other presentations—and Prezi presenters as more knowledgeable, professional, effective, and organized than other presenters—was because they confuse media with messages and messengers. Dual-process models of persuasion contend that opinion change occurs through not just slow deliberations grounded in logic and reason but also through fast shortcuts rooted in associations and cues [ 103 – 106 ]. If better presenters with better arguments tend to give better presentations, then an audience’s experience while viewing a presentation may shade their judgments about its presenter or argument. This is the same basic logic of research that demonstrates PowerPoint’s persuasion advantage over oral presentations [ 53 , 54 ]. Just as audiences appear more persuaded by slideware than by oral presentations, they also appear more persuaded by ZUI than by slideware presentations. But unlike past research, we do not argue that audience members use technological sophistication as a cue for argument quality [ 53 ] or presenter preparedness [ 54 ]; instead, we suggest that they use their subjective viewing experience as a heuristic for judging both presentations and presenters. Because ZUI presentations are more engaging than slideshows, ZUI presentations and presenters are judged more positively than slideshows.

Concluding remarks

Media research, including research into presentation software, is plagued methodologically by a lack of experimental control, the unjustifiable assumption that media effects are constant across individuals and content, and a failure to account for the biases of all involved: the presenters, the audiences, and the researchers. In the research reported here we strived to overcome these challenges by randomly assigning presenters and audience members to competing presentation formats, blinding them to the experimental manipulations, and sampling a sufficient array of presentations within each format.

Our conclusions about the advantages of ZUIs (such as Prezi) over slideware (such as PowerPoint) and oral presentations are, of course, tentative. Further research will need to replicate the findings across different presentation contexts, clarify whether the subjective benefits of ZUIs over slideware result in decision-making or behavioral advantages, and better investigate the precise media attributes responsible for these advantages. Like others [ 107 ], we caution against technological determinism: Presentation medium is but one of many factors that determine presentation success, and presentations that rely on any given medium can succeed or fail. Because slideware can be used to zoom and pan over a virtual canvas just as ZUIs can be used to create slideshows, the benefits of ZUIs over slideware are ultimately based on affordances: How much do certain formats encourage or enable psychologically advantageous media attributes, such as zooming and panning animations?

In many ways, it is surprising that we found any effects of presentation medium. The presentations differed in many ways aside from their format, ways that surely influenced their effectiveness: Each presentation was made by a different person (sampled from a diverse pool of participants), presenters chose what content to include in their presentation, and presenters decided how to convey that content within their assigned format. Under real-world circumstances in which presentations of different formats are actually contrasted with each other, we expect this background “noise” to be greatly reduced and impact of format correspondingly greater.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments.

We would like to thank Erin-Driver Linn, Brooke Pulitzer, and Sarah Shaughnessy of the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching for their institutional guidance and support, Nina Cohodes, Gabe Mansur, and the staff of the Harvard Decision Sciences Laboratory for their assistance with participant testing, Michael Friedman for his feedback on pilot versions of the study protocol, and Tom Ryder for his support in adapting the multimedia case for research purposes.

Funding Statement

This research was supported by a grant from Prezi ( http://www.prezi.com ) to SMK. In the sponsored research agreement (which we are happy to provide) and in our conversations with Prezi leadership, they agreed to let us conduct the study as we wished and publish it no matter what the results revealed. Aside from funding the research, the only role that any employees of Prezi played was (as documented in the manuscript) 1) to provide us with a distribution list of Boston-area Prezi customers (8 of whom participated in the first experiment) and 2) as experts in Prezi, review the background questionnaire to ensure that we were accurately describing Prezi’s purported benefits and features (just as PowerPoint and oral presentation experts did the same). No employees at Prezi had any role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. None of the authors have any professional or financial connection to Prezi or personal relationships with any Prezi employees. We do not plan to conduct any follow-up research on this topic or obtain future funding from Prezi. As evident in the manuscript, we took special care not to allow bias or demand characteristics to influence this research.

Data Availability