Teaching the Assertion-Evidence Design of Presentation Slides

Teaching Slides and Exercises Before-and-After Examples (ppt) Teaching Slides (ppt) Exercises on Slide Design (pdf) Research on Slide Design FIE (October 2005) Tech Comm (February 2005) Tech Comm (November 2005) Tech Comm (May 2006) Research on Teaching with Slides J. Geosci. Ed. (January 2007) FIE (Diesel, October 2006) FIE (Wolfe, October 2006) Sample Teaching Slides Material Science Electrical Engineering Geoscience Assertion-Evidence Template: PowerPoint Template

This web page presents resources for instructors on teaching the assertion-evidence design for presentation slides that is described on the following web-site. Three other references that document this slide design are a November 2005 article in Technical Communication, chapter 4 of The Craft of Scientific Presentations, and Beyond Bullet Points. Instructors are welcome to use the resources on this web-site in their teaching as long as they give credit to the original sources. Resources for teaching the assertion-evidence design include teaching slides to introduce the design, in-class exercises, model slides, and a special PowerPoint template. Instructors are also welcome to submit both questions about the design and resources for other instructors to use. In addition to teaching resources, this web page also presents a listing of instructors who teach the design and a list of frequently asked questions pertaining to the design. Assertion-Evidence Slides: Students Penn State (Atamturkur) Virginia Tech (Lynch) Clemson University (Fishel) University of Illinois (Dibbern) Los Alamos Dynamics School (Simmers) Cornell University University of Oslo (Aspmo) Assertion-Evidence Slides: Professionals Sikorsky Aircraft (Stelzer) Army Research Laboratory (Rochester) Norwegian Institute for Air Research (Laupsa) Scandpower Petroleum Technology (Holmås) United States Geological Survey (Bekins) Simula Research Laboratory (Bruaset) NSF PRIME Project (Gleixner)

Frequently Asked Questions If you have a question or comment on one of the answers given below, please contact the editor of this web-site. When is it appropriate to use the assertion-evidence design in engineering and scientific presentations? First, slides should be appropriate for the presentation. A common criticism of presentation slides is that slides are used for presentations (or portions of presentations) in which no visual aid would be appropriate. Second, the success of the presentation should depend on the audience understanding the content. Generally, when engineers and scientists use this design, they report receiving more questions than if they had used the traditional topic-subtopic design. The reason is that the audience better understands the content. Yet a third criterion for using the assertion-evidence design is that the slides should be a visual aid for the audience rather than a visual aid for the speaker. One allure of a traditional PowerPoint slide is that it allows presenters to project their "talking points." The assertion-evidence design, on the other hand, presents only the key assertions of the talk, forcing the speaker to know the content well enough that he or she can speak from the assertions and the supporting visual evidence. Why does not a period follow the sentence-assertion headline? The presenter certainly could place a period after the sentence-assertion headline, but most presenters using the design follow the billboard convention of punctuation. That is, since each sentence is a stand-alone text block, and not part of a paragraph, the period has no function. Therefore, the period is dropped for the sake of simplicity. Why is the title slide treated differently? In other words, why not have a sentence-assertion headline on this slide? The presenter could format the title slide to have a title slide and in fact Larry Gottlieb and a few others teach that style. In their teachings, they advocate the title slide having essentially the same sentence headline as the conclusion slide. The reason that most people do not teach this practice is that it is too radical for most learners. Also, learners have to be careful about stating the main conclusion up front (tell then what you're going to tell them) when the news is negative or when the audience just is not prepared for that result.

Instructors of Assertion-Evidence Design If you are an instructor teaching the assertion-evidence slide design and would like to be listed here, please contact the editor of this web-site. Name Ahlers, Sharon Alley, Michael Atkinson, Cliff Bailey, Carol Brantley, William A. Curtis, Cody Davies, Angela Doumont, Jean-luc Gilbert, Rick Gottlieb, Larry Hart, Hillary Heath, Peter Jennings, Ann Johnson, Carol Kasarda, Mary Krages, Kathryn Leedom, Bob Lerner, Neal Linsky, Elisa Marshall, Melissa Mayer, Robert J. McPherson, Cynthia Moore, Christy Nathans-Kelly, Traci M. Neeley, Kathryn A. Nicometo, Christine G. Pierrakos, Olga Podur, Justin Randall, D'Arcy Schreiber, Madeline Sharp, Julie E. Srajek, Leslie C. Taylor, Summer Wolfe, Joanna Institution Cornell University Pennsylvania State University Sociable Media Virginia Tech Univ. of Louisville Oregon Health and Science University UNC Charlotte Principiæ PowerSpeaking, Inc. Lawrence Livermore National Lab Univ. of Texas at Austin Tampere Polytech. Univ. Appl. Sciences Univ. of Houston-Downtown New Jersey Institute of Technology Virginia Tech Oregon Health and Science University Northrop Grumman MIT Polytechnic University Pennsylvania State University Univ. of Puerto Rico at Aguadilla Univ. of Alabama at Huntsville Univ. of Texas at Austin Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Univ. of Virginia Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Virginia Tech York University Univ. of Texas at Austin Virginia Tech Vanderbilt University Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Clemson University Univ. of Louisville

References Alley, Michael, The Craft of Scientific Presentations (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2003), chap 4. Alley, Michael, and Kathryn A. Neeley, "Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides: A Case for Sentence Headlines and Visual Evidence," Technical Communication, vol. 52, no. 4 (November 2005), pp. 417-426. Alley, Michael, and Harry Robertshaw, "Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides: The Importance of Writing Sentence Headlines," 2004 International Mechanical Engineering Conference and Exposition, paper 61827 (Anaheim, CA: ASME, November 2004). Alley, Michael, and Harry Robertshaw, "Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides: Creating Slides That Are Readily Comprehended," 2004 International Mechanical Engineering Conference and Exposition, paper 61889 (Anaheim, CA: ASME, November 2004). Alley, Michael, Madeline Schreiber, and John Muffo, "Pilot Testing of a New Design of Presentation Slides to Teach Science and Engineering," 2005 Frontiers in Education Conference, paper 1213 (Indianapolis, IN: ASEE/IEEE, October 2005). Alley, Michael, Madeline Schreiber, Katrina Ramsdell, and John Muffo, "How the Design of Headlines in Presentation Slides Affects Audience Retention," Technical Communication, vol. 53, no. 2 (May 2006), pp. 225-234. Alley, Michael, Madeline Schreiber, Elizabeth Diesel, Katrina Ramsdell, and Maura Borrego, "Increased Learning and Attendance in Resources Geology through the Combination of Sentence-headline Slides and Active Learning Measures," Journal of Geoscience Education, vol. 55, no. 1 (January 2007), pp. 83-89. Aspmo, Katrine, Torunn Berg, and Grete Wibetoe, "Atmospheric Mercury Depletion Events (AMDEs) in Polar Regions During Arctic Spring," presentation (Oslo, Norway: University of Oslo, 16 June 2004). Atkinson, Cliff, Beyond Bullet Points: How to Use Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 2005). Bekins, Barbara, "The Influence of Hydrogeology on 25 Years of Natural Attenuation at a Crude Oil Spill Site" (Menlo Park, CA: Water Resources Division of the United States Geological Survey, 20 May 2004). Desrosiers, Kevin, "Evaluation of Novel and Low Cost Materials for Bipolar Plates in PEM Fuel Cells," master's thesis presentation (Blacksburg, VA: Mechanical Engineering Department, August 2002). Dibbern, Elizabeth M., F.J.J. Toublan, and K.S. Suslick, "Formation and Characterization of Polyglutamate Core-Shell Microspheres," Journal of American Chemical Society, vol. 128 (2006), pp. 6540-6541. Diesel, Elizabeth, Alley, Michael, Madeline Schreiber, and Maura Borrego, "Improving Student Learning in Large Classes by Incorporating Active Learning with a New Design of Teaching Slides," 2006 Frontiers in Education Conference, paper 1289 (San Diego: ASEE/IEEE, October 2006). Doumont, Jean-luc, "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Not All Slides Are Evil," Technical Communication, vol. 52, no. 1 (February 2005), pp. 64-70. Gleixner, Stacy, Professor in Material Science and Engineering at San Jose State University, phone conversation with Michael Alley (22 March 2006). Gottlieb, Larry, "How I Leaped Almost Overnight from Traditional Tech Writer to Marcom Guy to Hybrid, in a Tad More Than Four Decades," Proceedings of the 49th Annual Conference for the Society of Technical Communication (Nashville, TN: Society for Technical Communication, 2002). Gottlieb, Larry, "New-Breed Presentationists Sometimes Closely Collaborate on Presentations," Proceedings of the 1984 Professional Communication Society Conference of the IEEE (Atlantic City, NJ: IEEE, October 10-12, 1984). Jaffe, Greg, "What's Your Point, Lieutenant? Please, Just Cut to the Pie Charts?" Wall Street Journal (26 April 2000), p. A-1. Keedy, Hugh "PRO Visuals Can Improve Your Presentations," Sixth Annual Practical Conference on Communication Proceedings (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee, October 22-23, 1982), pp. 13-34. Keller, Julia, "Is PowerPoint the Devil?" Chicago Tribune (23 January 2004). Lappegard, Gaute, "Determining Subglacial Hydraulic Systems With Subglacial, High-Pressure Pump Experiments," presentation (Oslo, Norway: University of Oslo, 17 June 2004). Leedom, Robert, Lockheed Corporation, e-mail correspondence with Michael Alley, 27 June 2005. Lynch, Stephen, and Karen Thole, "Aerodynamics and Heat Transfer for Airfoil-Endwall Junctures in Gas Turbine Engines," AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference, Air Breathing Propulsion Technical Committee Meeting (Sacramento, CA: American Institute for Aeronautics & Astronautics, 11 July 2006). Madden, Marie, "A New Agar-Saline Phantom for Blood Perfusion," First Place Presentation in the ASME Old Guard Presentation Competition, Mid-Atlantic Region (Hamlet, NC: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 5 April 2003). Marthinsen, Gunnhild, Jan Lifjeld, and Liv Wennerberg, "Population Differentiation in Dunlins Caladris alpine in Northern Europe," presentation (Oslo, Norway: University of Oslo, 12 June 2004). Mayer, Richard E., Multimedia Learning (New York: Cambridge, 2001). Parker, Ian, "Absolute PowerPoint," The New Yorker (28 May 2001). Ruggiero, Eric, Dan Inman, and Guyhae Park, "Active Dynamic Analysis and Vibration Control of Gossamer Structures Using Smart Materials," First Place Presentation in the Paul E. Torgersen Research Excellence Award for M.S. Theses (Blacksburg, VA: College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, 3 April 2002). Robertshaw, Harry, "Class Period 15: Signals and Systems," classroom presentation in ME 4005 (Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Tech, 16 March 2004). Schwartz, John, "The Level of Discourse Continues to Slide," The New York Times (28 September 2003). Shaw, Gordon, Robert Brown, and Philip Bromiley, "Strategic Stories: How 3M Is Rewriting Business Planning," Harvard Business Review (May–June 1998), pp. 41–50. Simmers, Eddie, Jeff Hodgkins, and David Mascarenas, "Modifying a Self-Sensing Circuit to Increase the Stability of Vibration Control," presentation (Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos Dynamics Summer School, 15 July 2003). Stewart, Miriam, Mike Navin, and George Filz, "Analysis of a Column-Supported Test Embankment at the I-95/Route 1 Interchange," presentation (Blacksburg, VA: Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, 21 April 2004). Tufte, Edward R., "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2003). Tufte, Edward R., "Engineering by Viewgraph," Columbia Accident Investigation Board, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Columbia Accident Investigation Board, 2003), p. 191. Tufte, Edward R., "PowerPoint Is Evil," Wired, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html (11 September 2003). Wald, Matthew J., and J. Schwartz, "Shuttle Inquiry Uncovers Flaws in Communication," The New York Times (14 August 2003). Wolfe, Christine, Alley, Michael, and Kate C. Sheridan, "Improving Retention of Information from Teaching Slides," 2006 Frontiers in Education Conference, paper 1363 (San Diego: ASEE/IEEE, October 2006). Zess, Gary, and Karen Thole, "Computational Design and Experimental Evaluation of Using a Leading Edge Fillet on a Gas Turbine Vane," Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Exposition, 2001-GT-404 (New Orleans: IGTI, 5 June 2001).

Created 02/2004 Last updated 07/2007 http://writing.eng.vt.edu/teaching_slide_design.html Web page maintained by Michael Alley, Penn State