How to Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation for College Students

Everyone at some point in their lives has made a presentation. Whether it be for their work, class, or personal consumption, presentations are one of the best ways to showcase your talent in research, synthesis, and design.

Nonetheless, PowerPoint presentations are more commonly used in school and the workplace. Whether teachers, students, or working professionals, most individuals would present their content through a presentation that combines the objective structure of their content and the stunning nature of their visual presentations.

Today, however, our focus is to provide some expert tips on how to make a good PowerPoint presentation for a class or any other academic purpose.

Stay tuned until the end since we will be providing PowerPoint Presentation examples (templates) that you can use to level up your reporting and presentation skills.

I. Benefits of Effective PowerPoint Presentations

These are just some common questions every student could ask while trying to figure out “how to make a good Powerpoint presentation for college.

Yet, with all the tips out there, it is surprising that many students still fail to understand the importance of a well-researched, visually appealing, and emotionally-captivating presentation.

A. What Makes a Presentation Effective?

Like other tips we’ve provided here in AOS Essays, the secret (or ‘open secret’) on how to make a good PowerPoint presentation for class is to balance.

However, compared to others, the balance that must be achieved to capture your audiences’ attention is based on “equity” and not “equality.” In simpler terms, even though you must improve your voice, non-verbal communication, and content, you must focus first on your non-verbal before others.

In one study done by Visme, it was found that effective PowerPoint presentations are 55% dependent upon the quality of your non-verbal communication (which involves your presentation design) and only 7% of your actual content.

The remaining 38%, you may ask? That falls under the tone and quality of your voice, which suggests that improving your non-verbal communication (which includes your design) could help your craft effective PowerPoint presentations even if you cannot ace your vocal delivery.

Now that you have learned one solid tip regarding PowerPoint best practices let’s move on to the actual benefits of improving your presentation skills.

B. Actual Benefits of Good Reports

Creating the best PowerPoint presentation has both a direct and indirect effect on your actual performance.

On the one hand, studies show that creating effective PowerPoint presentations would help ease up your anxieties or worries.

Joel Schwartzberg wrote in the Harvard Business Journal, “Shifting the spotlight from yourself to your ideas can make you less anxious because it focuses you on your real job —not to be amazing, charismatic, or entertaining, but to effectively convey your point.”

Shifting the spotlight from yourself to your ideas can make you less anxious because it focuses you on your real job —not to be amazing, charismatic, or entertaining, but to effectively convey your point.

To add further to his point, he also said that…

But here’s the thing: Your presentation is not a public speaking contest, and you’re not being judged. You’re not even a performer; you’re a presenter, moving important concepts from your head to your audience’s heads. (That’s why you “deliver” a presentation).

In other words, effective presentations (and consequently appealing ones) can help reduce your anxiety by shifting your audience’s attention to your presentation.

On the other hand, the more obvious reason is that presentations that follow what others call “PowerPoint Best Practices” could help increase audience interest, comprehension, and retention with the use of this easy-to-learn tool.

In one study done by Visual Teaching Alliance, they found out that our minds can process visuals up to 60,000 faster in the brain than text. From this, you can just imagine how much a visual presentation can improve your report compared to the use of plain old text formats.

Taken all together, it becomes clear that learning how to make a good PowerPoint presentation for a college class is essential for any student (and even business professionals). Students would find PowerPoint presentations helpful in various tasks, including assignments, reporting, projects, research, and many others.

Now that we have learned how powerful PowerPoint presentations are let’s now delve into some of the secrets of learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation that would stun your viewers.

II. How to Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation for College Class

Here are some of the PowerPoint best practices that you can use for your college class.

A. Plan your (and for your) Presentation

Benjamin Franklin once said, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” This goes the same with creating any report or presentation in your life. Before creating your presentation, you need to plan for it carefully.

1. Audience

First, you have to know your audience. Identify your audience’s knowledge level, interest, and age. It is essential to consider these things to ensure that you deliver an accurate and appropriate presentation.

2. Time Frame

Second, you have to consider the time frame of your presentation. If you do not have much time, you need to shorten your presentation; however, if you have the luxury of time, you can expand your speech and even add emotional embellishments to reach your goals.

3. Essential Parts and Topic

Third, research your topic. You can input several essential points in your presentation if you research your topic. In addition, you can also use your research when you orally present your presentation. This will help you be knowledgeable and familiar with your work.

4. Design and Elements

Lastly, carefully plan for the design and elements in your presentation. Aside from the content, the design will also help you create a good presentation. Thus, planning is essential.

B. Choose a Theme

You need a theme in mind. This theme will direct the way you design and create your PowerPoint presentation. There are built-in templates in PowerPoint but do not settle with them. You can do better than that and come up with a better theme. This will make your presentation more unique and personalized. A unique presentation can attract and astonish viewers.

One site I used before I learned how to make a good PowerPoint presentation design is SlidesCarnival. You can check their collection of free templates that you can use.

C. Use Keywords

You must deliver every specific detail, point, and element, right? Wrong! Remember that the best PowerPoint Presentation must be as concise as possible. Just enough to deliver your information to your audience without them being overloaded with information.

There is a specific number of words required per slide. Too much information on a slide will overwhelm the viewers. It is recommended to have six words in a line and six lines in a slide.

Remember this is PowerPoint; choose the words that have the POWER to create an impact on the viewers.

D. Add Elements

A presentation is dull with texts alone. Try adding elements such as images, videos, audio, and other types of elements. You may also try adding graphs, charts, and diagrams to make your presentation more comprehensive. These elements will contribute to the overall impact of the presentation.

E. Use bullets

One of my early mistakes, when I was still trying to learn how to make a good PowerPoint presentation for college, was creating a presentation without much regard for structure.

Accordingly, one of the most taken-for-granted PowerPoint Best practices that every student should know is that it would be better to use bullets instead of placing block texts in your slides. Bullets organize the information and points in a presentation making it clearer to the viewers. Bullets also emphasize the key points. Hence, it is best to use bullets.

F. Limit your Slides

You do not have to include every detail in your presentation. Therefore, you must limit your slides. If you have 50 slides in a presentation, the viewers will be bored halfway, and there is a high chance that they will no longer listen to you.

You may limit your slides and expound the content through your speech. Remember, less is more.

III. Additional Tips and Best Practices

A. Be creative and playful (but only to an extent)

The list of things you can do in PowerPoint is limitless. It has several functions and tools to help create a good presentation. You can add videos, images, shapes, audio, and other media types. You can also use various elements to design a slide. In addition, you can use animations to make your presentation good.

The beauty and power of the presentation lie in your hands. PowerPoint is just a tool to help you ace your next school activity. This is an avenue to unleash your creativity and be limitless!
However, you should also limit your creativity to a certain extent, leading us to our next point.

B. Do not overdo your presentation

Balance is the key. Even though PowerPoint has so much to offer, you should still need to add elements moderately. Too much design can overcome the message or the context of the presentation.

Remember that your presentation will help you ace a task, but it is not solely the source of your grade. You also have to focus on the way you will deliver your presentation. So, balance how you create your presentation and how you present it.

C. Do not put too much content on a slide

It is not advisable to put too much content on a slide. If a slide contains too many images, it can overpower the text. If a slide has too much text, the viewers may find the presentation dull and illegible.

Always remember that the best PowerPoint presentation is one that strikes an “equitable balance” (see previous discussion) between your voice, non-verbal communication, and content. Therefore, ensure that you only put the most important information and most relevant elements in your presentation.

D. Use a readable font style

PowerPoint has built-in font styles, and numerous font styles are available online. However, some font styles do not match specific presentation requirements and levels.

To err on the side of caution, you must consider using basic fonts with Serif or Sans Serif touch. These fonts are readable and straightforward. They will make your presentation chic and legible.

E. Use level-appropriate elements

Remember that you are at the collegiate level. You are also trying to learn how to make a good Powerpoint presentation for college, not for high school, middle school, or even elementary levels.
Thus, you cannot just add any element that may look attractive. You cannot add the built-in clip arts or too animated media since they cannot capture the attention of the college students.

It is also essential to adjust your presentation depending on the level of the viewers. The presentation is meant for them, so they need to be considered. Thus, make sure to use level-appropriate elements.

F. Choose colors wisely

The color of the elements and the slide itself matter. You need to use contrasting colors for the texts and the background. The dark-colored background needs to have light-colored text and colors, whereas the light-colored background needs to have dark-colored text and colors.

This way, the slide’s content will be readable and emphasized. It is also not advisable to use too many colors on a slide; three to four colors will suffice. Too many colors can bring confusion and displease the viewers.

Additionally, you can use websites to identify a color scheme of your choice. You can try Coolors.co. To reiterate, choose colors wisely!

Now that you have learned some of the best practices on how to make a good Powerpoint presentation for college, the next step is practicing your skills using a template.

IV. PowerPoint Presentation Examples

To aid you in improving your presentation capacities, we provided several PowerPoint examples for college students that you can use.

However, we only posted one below. If you need more, you can contact us through our email address ([email protected]) or through our live chat.