Customer Reviews

Save Our Slides: PowerPoint Design That Works

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As a professor who relies extensively on powerpoint presentations in class--and often on the 'packaged presentations' included with textbook supplemental materials--I am now revising ALL of my slides! Dr. Earnest's succinct book is so packed full of helpful, humorous insights, I read it all in one sitting. Then, I frantically searched through my own powerpoint slides and, sure enough, found "Fireball" and "High Voltage" lurking in my lectures! Surely, my students will appreciate my updated slides. No more "shades of blue so dreary" or "stale potato chips" in my classroom!

I teach Business and Professional Communication and Presentational Speaking for the University of Texas system. Save Our Slides has been a tremendous resource in my classes because it offers clear visual comparisons of effective and ineffective slide design. Students can easily see how to "fix" their slides so they are more aesthetically-pleasing and so their audience members will be able to quickly understand the information presented. The book emphasizes the idea that slides are a supplement for presentations and it helps speakers keep the audience's focus on themselves and their message, not on reading lengthy slides. The book is also small and inexpensive enough students could keep it for a resource to use after graduating. I know that the author, Billy Earnest, will update this book in the future, so I predict he will keep up with new technology. Highly recommended!

In this day and age PowerPoint has become commonplace in nearly every business and higher ed institution. It is no stretch to say that fluency in PowerPoint is nearly as crucial as fluency in English in these contexts. Despite this fact, most students, business professionals, and instructors know very little when it comes to using PowerPoint as an effective communication tool. As a public speaking instructor I have been consistently shocked by how poorly designed my students' slides are. Fortunately last fall I came across "Save our Slides: PowerPoint Design that Works" and adopted it for my public speaking classes. I was incredibly impressed with the results. Not only did my own slides improve dramatically but for the first time my students designed effective, thoughtful PowerPoint presentations, and were more "into" their speeches than ever before. Moreover, when I asked the students what they thought about the book they all said they loved it. Unlike a normal textbook that is filled with redundant and boring information, "Save Our Slides" is short, direct, and written in an engaging and entertaining manner. I honestly can't put into words how happy I am to have come across this book. I will use it for many years to come and recommend it to every working professional I know.

Dr. Earnest's book provides succinct, easily implemented guidance for sharpening your presentation visuals. With a few simple changes, such as focusing your slides on images more than text, you can improve the effectiveness of your communication -- getting more applause and less snores! This book is required in my undergraduate business communication class at The University of Texas at Austin, and my students send me countless stories of the rave reviews they receive on their presentations in other classes, on internships, and in their first jobs.

Please do all of your future audiences a favor and read this book!

Contemporary users of presentation software like PowerPoint know how to use the program itself. What we often know less about, and the subject of Earnest's humorous and handy book, is good slide design.

Good slide design keeps your audience engaged with your message without lulling them to sleep. Good design complements your presentation without becoming a complete text of everything you wish to say. Good design skillfully incorporates a blend of template, fonts, and graphics that adds to the communicative effectiveness of your presentation. Anyone who uses PowerPoint (teachers, students, business professionals) can benefit from Earnest's on-target advice.

Using a lighthearted, crisply-written style, Earnest offer 5 easily-understood rules of good slide design that everyone can use. The specific visual examples throughout the handbook help readers to zero in on the key components of each rule of design. Moreover, Earnest's sense of humor allows the reader to recognize the kinds of slide design violations we're all guilty of making from time to time, and to have fun while learning how to avoid such infractions in the future.