Visual Aids for Presentations

Series Summary

The modern business world is a funny place. A suit and tie can make a man look respectable, neat, and confident; and a woman in a pantsuit comes across likewise. But underneath the finery is a highly competitive collection of industries run not by professionals, but by capitalists. You work at a publishing house, publishing books. You are a publisher. The owner of the company, the person in charge of all the publishers, however, is himself not a publisher at all. He is a capitalist. Shipping delays, paper quality, editor communication—they are only secondary concerns of his. Your job is to publish books; his job is to make money. The distinction can be tricky: you both work for a living, you both try to make as much money as possible, you both strive for bonuses and care about how the company performs. But you get paid for the time you spend publishing. He gets paid for making money. In the world of business, at least these two tiers exist.

In this free communications video series, professional public speaker Tracy Goodwin offers tips and advice on choosing and using visual aids. Tracy introduces basic types of visual aids and tries to brainstorm with you about which aids would work for your presentation. You will learn about graphs, charts, handouts, transparencies, PowerPoint slides, models and more. Tracy even offers tips on using chalkboards and whiteboards. You will also gain ideas for how many visual aids to use and how to efficiently buy or make them. Tracy's key word is "enhance," and you will learn how to use visual aids that enhance your presentation without being fluffy or showy.

Video Transcript

"Hi there, Tracy Goodwin the red sweater lady. And, we are going to be talking about using visual aides for your speech or your presentation. Now, visual aides. What are visual aides? Well, they are a visual that aides your speech or presentation. They are simply there to enhance the words that you're speaking, the work that you've done. And, there are lots and lots of different types of visual aides. We're going to talk about all of them. And, you want to pick a certain visual aide for a certain purpose. So, you can't just automatically decide what you're going to do until you've got your speech or presentation written. There's also a lot of really good pointers and tips for how to use visual aides, once you've selected the visual aide that you want to use. And, I'm going to go over all of those with you. It's great, great to have a visual aide to enhance your project as professional. As a university professor, I strongly encourage it with my students. So, let's get started."