Of interest may be a book and supporting website called Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson (www.beyondbullets.com/).1 He promotes a no-bullet-point approach to presentations and, further, suggests a filmscript type approach to the construction of the message or story to be delivered.2
This style is more time consuming to put together, and the greatest hurdle I’ve had to face is not having the bullet points as a reminder of what I have to say. I have, however, had much better feedback from these presentations than from my “standard” PowerPoint slide sets. This approach still uses Microsoft PowerPoint to deliver the material, so the tools of change are at your disposal.
Competing interests: None declared.
References
- 1.Atkinson C. Beyond bullet points: using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 to create presentations that inform, motivate, and inspire Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 2007
- 2.Greenhalgh T. Campaign for real lectures. BMJ 2008;336: 1252. (31 May.) doi:10.1136/bmj.39590.515845.59 [Google Scholar]