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Comment by elcritch | Hacker News Reader

I have a friend who's a pastor. As a basic rule of a good sermon he always quoted the old addage: "Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them and tell them what you’ve told them".

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There's more art to it, because there's also an off-putting way of doing that, which frequently shows up in presentations: you're greeted with a powerpoint slide with the topics in bullet points, which the presenter reads out loud, then come the slides with each of those points, also read out loud, and at the end there's a summary that almost copies the first slides, and which --for good measure-- is also read out loud. That makes me want to forget everything that's been told.

It's an incredibly common mistake, for the presenter to put up slide after slide that is just a script of what they want to say - then your brain has to choose between listening or reading, to the detriment of both.

I have more sympathy with intro and outro summaries, as long as the bullet points are short and delivered one at a time while the speaker expands upon each one.

Slides should be a visual aid, not a substitute for presentation.

The best presentation I ever saw was done by a colleague of Mikel Harry's at a Six Sigma conference in Frankfurt. The presenter had no ready made slides but he had an overhead projector, three transparencies, a handful of dry marker pens, and an eraser. As he spoke he sketched charts and diagrams to illustrate his points. If an audience member asked a question he was able to provide an answer in both words and with another sketch.

The old ways are the best.

Reminds me of Presentation Zen or the 10/20/30 rule which states that “a presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.”

The anecdote doesn't strike me because your friend the pastor said it, but because it's a rule as old as times that every high-schooler was taught.

- The introduction should announce the thesis and its development - walk your way towards your thesis - The conclusion should summarize your thesis (and hint at openings towards new grounds)

But somehow, everyone seems to forget it and is in awe whenever someone recaps it.

And every high schooler, TedX speaker, and Malcom Gladwell impersonator gets this wrong: It only works if intro and conclusion present a different view on the information, otherwise it's simply boring the audience to death.

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