Dance is a beautiful medium conveying story, emotion, and passion. Radio is ubiquitous, free, and a perfect way to communicate effectively, widely, and efficiently. Dance on the radio does not work, no matter how much we love both. Nothing from a document (docx) should be in a presentation (ppt). It simply doesn’t work.
A document is any collection of information that has been captured in a structured or semi-structured form for reading, reference, or use. A presentation is a structured way of sharing information, ideas, or arguments with an audience, usually through spoken words supported by visual or other media. Sadly the majority of presentations have become the unholy alliance of both; a document being read out from the screen it is projected upon, the “slideument“. There are many many reasons why this does not work but put simply nothing from a document should be on the screen. It is like dance on the radio.
When planning and constructing a presentation, do not simply take the text of a written document (say a research paper) and convert it directly into slides. The structure, the language and the length are as appropriate as dance on the radio. One needs to develop a message, an effective spoken structure and movement through higher order thinking (such as by Bloom’s Taxonomy) bringing the audience from their initial place of understanding to a deeper knowledge and desire for them to make change. The text of a document will not do that.
Printed media may contain data tables, graphical representation of data and images. None of these are designed for projection on a screen as the medium is entirely different. A reader can peruse complex data tables, make calculations, check references, re-read supportive paragraphs, check other papers,, flick back and forth across paragraphs and sections all whilst taking their own time to do so. An audience member can do none of these tasks and follow the speaker. It is like dance on the radio.
A data table whilst containing a multitude of information cannot be interpreted on a screen in a limited period of time. Do not use them. Complex scientific graphs cannot be interpreted on a screen in a limited period of time. Do not use them. Images designed for a journal article are cropped and displayed in a manner that cannot be replicated on a screen in a limited period of time. They do not work because they violate key principles of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML) Do not use them. Nothing from a document should be on the screen in a presentation.
All of the pieces of information from a document may have a place in the message. They may be part of the supportive material, but as amazing as dance is as a medium, it does not play well on the radio. Find a better way of conveying the information from within a document if you feel it needs be within a presentation screen than simply cutting and pasting. Dance on the radio does not work.