
Presentations: 2 Minute Training #10: Don’t Read Your Presentation Off The Screen
So many people read directly off the screen when they are presenting, that Tyler Dockery starts to wonder if the BAD PRESENTATION fairy came to school on a day when he was sick.
“I have sat through many presentations— students work, teacher work, Department heads and Deans, Government coordinators, town council members, pitches from vendors, and all manner of situations. And nothing… really, I mean NOTHING… boors and audience to tears and loses their attention quicker than reading the actual slide to the audience.
Honestly, people can read to themselves far faster than you can look at the screen, read the text to yourself, and then mindlessly repeat it back to us. By the time you got to the second line, we already read the whole 5 lines of your slide, and stopped paying attention.
One of my students gave his class a presentation where he read directly off of every slide. After 5 slides, I asked him to download the presentation and I would look at it myself later. It was a dark day for that student.” Tyler Dockery stated.
People have specific information that they need from a presentation. Otherwise, don’t give it. Covering the minutiae is a waste of good time. So why do people do it?
Statistically, people are more afraid of speaking in public than they are of dying.
Visual aids should compliment your presentation, not be it. Yet, even now, people are turning to their presentations, and mumbling what everyone already sees and might already know. Giving a presentation can cause anxiety if you’re not comfortable using the equipment or if the equipment is not present or fails to work properly. Or if you are just not comfortable speaking in public. By turning back to the presentation screen, many people no longer have to look at the audience, and they can drop their level of anxiety. Furthermore, it is extremely awkward to speak when you are constantly turning away from your audience as you look at your presentation on the projection screen.
In a 2007 poll of the most annoying thing about powerpoint presentations, 60.4% of those polled noted reading off the screen as the number 1 most annoying thing about giving presentations— more than small type, flying graphics, full sentences, and jarring color choices. Ridiculous.
Rather than doing something you KNOW people hate, and probably something you ALSO HATE, consider some alternative methods like cue cards, visual cues on the walls, or just memorizing your presentation. If you pull a blank in the middle of your presentation, just glance up, and expand upon the short topic.
You’d hate it if someone heckled you while you gave your presentation. Everyone else hates it when you read from the screen. Make a conscious choice to make your audience happy when you give a presentation, and you’ll be one step closer to having them in the palm of your hand.

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