Adding a visual aid can emphasize a main point and maintain the audience’s attention during your presentation. Visual aids can also adapt to the audience’s learning styles by providing visual representations of information, which increases the comprehension and retention of key items in your speech. This section will focus on designing electronic visual aids, such as a PowerPoint presentation.
- Tools to Design Visual Aids: You can use tools like Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Canva to design electronic visual aids for your presentation. These applications offer various templates, graphics, and customization options to create professional and visually appealing slides that support your speech content.
- Visual Aid Design Techniques
- Keep the Visual Aid Simple: Avoid writing your speech word-for word in the slides. Instead, write bullet points and images related to your speech topic and main points, rather than distract from your presentation. Recommended word count: Write no more than 40 words per slide.
- Add Visual Appeal: Use a consistent background, high-quality images, and legible fonts. Incorporate charts, graphs, and pictures to represent data and concepts in your presentation. Recommended: Use size 24-28 font so the audience can read your content.
- Strengthen Your Credibility: Include in-text citations in MLA or APA format if you add research from your speech outline in your visual aid. The citations will also serve as a reminder to cite this source verbally during the presentation. Then, create a bibliography slide at the end of the presentation that includes your sources (at least 4 sources for the persuasive presentation).
- Limit the Number of Slides: Start your presentation with a cover slide, including your speech's title and your name. Then, add slides that complement your main points. Use 4-5 slides for your visual aid in this class.
- Keep the Content Relevant to Your Speech: Add keywords and images related to your speech topic to minimize confusion for the audience members. Remember to cite any images, charts, or graphs you gather from outside sources. Let’s look at examples of visual aid content for a speech about “The Environmental Impact of Plastic Waste.”
- Visual: A pie chart showing the percentage breakdown of plastic waste by type (e.g., bottles, bags, packaging).
- Text: Statistics on plastic pollution, such as "Plastic bottles account for 30% of global plastic waste."
- Image: An image of a polluted beach to emphasize the impact of plastic waste on the environment.