After more than 20 years in the presentation business, I have seen hundreds of presentations and heard many live lectures.
One thing is considered the most important aspect if you want to give an inspiring and convincing presentation: " Never read directly from a PowerPoint slide during a presentation. Avoid cluttered slides and long sentences."
Your audience can see, understand, and read the slides themselves. "Reading" your presentations aloud makes them boring, soporific, slows down your presentation's momentum, reduces your persuasiveness, and diminishes your listeners' attention. This risk always exists when you have too much text and information on your slides.
Even the best speakers and presenters can quickly fall into the so-called "reading-aloud mode." They then read line by line from the slide. The danger: your audience will very quickly lose interest in listening!
We cannot listen and read at the same time.
We humans are capable of multitasking. Focusing on listening while simultaneously reading something else isn't one of our natural abilities. Especially when presenting your business using Microsoft PowerPoint, you want to convey a lot of information, data, and facts.
Give your audience the chance to listen intently to your presentation. Or pause briefly to give them time to absorb your points and text. Provide supplementary information if necessary, or let your slides speak for themselves. Make it easier for your audience to understand and internalize your messages and statements.
Storytelling with large images and little text
A good way to avoid the "reading-aloud" effect in presentations: Use more images and reduce your content to short keywords and key phrases. Complete sentences and long paragraphs have no place in presentations. As the speaker, you supplement the information shown with your own input through your voiceover. Structure your content and use diagrams, images, or infographics depending on the message.
Do not write complete sentences on your PowerPoint slides.
When creating text for your slides, remember: Don't be too verbose, condense your content to the essentials, and definitely avoid writing full sentences. Even better, use just one short statement, one topic, or one concise remark per slide. Simply divide your information into smaller units and spread it across multiple slides. It's scientifically proven that this approach leads to better audience absorption.
Recall the negative example you've almost certainly witnessed in person: a lengthy PowerPoint presentation crammed with overloaded text slides and multiple points on each slide. Such a presentation is a guarantee that your audience's attention will be lost as the presentation progresses.
New: Speech output in Microsoft PowerPoint
In newer PowerPoint versions from 2016 onwards and in Microsoft Office 365, you can have your text read aloud by your computer. Use the automatic text-to-speech function to play your text. This way, you can hear your text. This is also a great option for accessible use of Microsoft PowerPoint on Windows.
Conclusion: Less text in your presentation
Avoid long sentences and focus on the essential points. Keywords and one or a few key statements per PowerPoint slide make it easier for your audience to grasp your information. This keeps their attention high and helps your content stick in their memory.