• Use one or two fonts. Using too many fonts causes the presentation to look cluttered and sloppy.

• Avoid italics. Italics are hard to read in presentaitons.

• Use bullet lists. Try to reduce sentences to phrases, if possible. This tightens the language and the audience focuses on key words. Start all bullet points with either a noun or verb, keeping all verbs the same tense. Also, the majority of slides do not need punctuation, even slides containing sentences. If the period is eliminated, it keeps the audience member's eyes focused on the text.

• Less text is more. A general rule is not to have more than 20 words of text per slide.

• Capitilization should be used sparingly. Capitilization causes the audience member to pause. Use both upper and lower case letters to increase readability.

• Allow for white space. Use the entire slide for the message while allowing a balance of white space. White space is space on the slide that is not covered with graphic matter, such as text, images, and graphs.

• Too many graphics. It is very easy to place too many visuals, such as images, graphs, tables and text, on a slide. The viewer will react negatively from the visual overload. Use more than one slide to present all the information.

• Margin crowding is bad. Do not crowd the margins of the slide. Letters or entire words are sometimes lost when projected on a screen if the margin is crowded. .