Make a Top Notch Slideshow

Sarrah's #1 tips for building an easy-to-follow slideshow and how to present it like a pro!

Sometimes, especially if you're competing in science fair competitions outside of ISEF, you are required to build and present a slideshow for your project instead of a tri-fold board. Don't copy and paste sections of your paper onto your slideshow, spend some more time on it and the result will speak for itself.

If you are instructed to create a slideshow, you'll likely be given a slide or a presentation time limit. In my experience, 20 slides worked for a presentation that was roughly 10 minutes long. That's going to sound like a lot of slides, but the key to a stellar slideshow is more pictures than words. Every slide should have at least 1 picture and some slides should be only pictures (like a slide with a graph on it). The words in the slideshow should prompt you to your next point, but not be full sentences that you read off. Practice your presentation and tweak the text so it reminds you what to talk about next. For more information about giving a presentation, click here.

Cosmetic appearances are important too. Being consistent with the theme and details, and small elements of creativity go a long way. If you're looking for something different than the typical Google Slides themes, Slides Carnival has plenty of free and eye-catching templates for Google Slides and Powerpoint. A custom background (with a readable text color) is also appealing.