In this lesson, we'll continue talking about the visuals you create for your presentation. We'll go over bullet lists, graphics, and the overall layout of your slides. Bullet lists usually make up much of the text on a slide. Bullets capture key ideas in just a few words. They're meant to be like the notes your audience might jot down if they were taking notes. They are succinct references to the topic you're discussing in depth. There are three things to remember as you create bullet lists. They should be concise, parallel, and formatted neatly. First, make your bullets concise. They should be phrases rather than complete sentences. You should use no more than six bullets on a slide and each bullet should usually take only one line never more than two. If a bullet goes into two lines, you may have too many words. Your audience won't be able to read a lot of words while you're talking. So make it easy on them and just suggest your idea in a bullet rather than writing out the whole idea. Make your bullets parallel. That means, that you start each bullet with the same part of speech. You may start each bullet with a verb or you may start each bullet with an adjective. Parallel bullets are easier for your audience to read and understand. In this example, the list on the left is not parallel. The phrases all have different structures. In the list on the right, each bullet starts with a verb. This may seem like a small thing but it goes a long way in helping your audience grasp the information quickly and clearly. Use a regular round dot for your primary bullets. Format your bullets with space between the bullet and the text about a quarter or a half an inch and use what we call a hanging indent. The second line of the bullet is indented the same amount as the first line. Use secondary bullets as little as possible. If you have secondary bullets, use a different symbol, a dash is a good choice, to distinguish secondary bullets from primary bullets. Any graphics that you include on a slide are classified as either tables or figures. Figures include photographs, illustrations, graphs, bar charts, pie charts, diagrams, and so on. In other words, a figure is anything that isn't a table. When you use figures or tables, make sure you include a caption. The caption should have a number, figure 1 or table 1. Figures and tables get numbered separately. The caption may also give a short explanation of what the figure or table is and you need to include the source where you borrowed the figure or table from. Captions for figures go beneath the figure and captions for tables go above the table. The font size for the caption should be at least 18 points. Now, you need to perfect each slides' overall layout. Strive to balance text, graphics, and white space. Turn words even concise bullets into graphics. When you can, the graphics are easier to read and they add color and looked more interesting. Also, considered the arrangements of your components on the slide. In this example, the photos are arranged haphazardly and you don't know what to look at first and where to look next. Your message can get lost in a poor arrangement like this. Arrange your components neatly. In this example, the photos are the same size and they're lined up in a clear pattern. Your audience will know where to look first and where to look next. The slide has enough white space or empty space that it doesn't look crowded. When your slides are clean and aesthetically pleasing, your audience will find them informative and pleasant to look at.
