XIV Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2022

At present time with the development of information technologies and the advent of applied software it is advantageous to use multimedia facilities for accompanying speech reports. To represent information more convincingly and clearly it is necessary to be able to create electronic presentations. The use of these means enlivens activities, and any information is perceived by an audience more emotionally.

A presentation presupposes giving and conveying necessary information to an audience. An electronic presentation is a file, which contains materials of a report prepared in the form of computer slides. The advantages of presentations are:

The opportunity to make use of cribs. A presentation contains not only materials that an audience can see and listen, but also notes for a speaker how to make accents and not to forget the most important things.

Multimedia effects. A slide of a presentation can contain not only an image, but also audio and video records, animation elements.

Compactness and portability. A disc and a flash memory card are more space-saving than a roll of posters. In this connection a presentation file can be easily sent by electronic mail or published in the Internet.

The PowerPoint Program of the Microsoft Company is one of the most popular tools for making presentations. The work consists in creating a set of slides, establishing the sequence of their demonstration, and the time of their exposure. The application of multimedia facilities allows a user to make his / her presentation more visual and understandable; helps accentuate the most significant things. However, it is important not to overestimate the role of effective design. A presentation should be informative, and inclusion of special effects should intensify perception of the main ideas. This program can be mastered by any user, who works with the Microsoft Office suite.

The process of creating a multimedia presentation contains the following three steps: the design phase, the development phase, and the modeling phase.

1. The design phase includes such stages as determining the goal of making a presentation, collecting necessary materials (texts, figures, schemes, etc.), developing the structure and logic of representing them. In the process of design the main ideas of report are defined, they are proved by statistics, documents, analogy, and visual examples. It is necessary to remember that the central ideas should be connected with the theme of report.

2. The development phase is the process of making and preparing a presentation with regard to its content and correlation of text and graphic information. This phase includes such steps as determining the design of slides; filling slides with collected text and visual information; including audio and video records, musical background (if necessary).

It is necessary to note that any presentation should include such standard slides as introduction, content, and conclusion. Besides, each presentation slide should have a heading. The introductory slide usually includes the full name of educational institution, the name of department, the name of presentation, city, and year. The content slide comprises the list of slides in a presentation, which are grouped by the themes of report (for example, slide 2 is “Introduction”; slide 3 is “The conceptual apparatus of the theme”, etc.). The use of the content slide helps a speaker find the necessary part of a presentation quickly and comment on it. The concluding slide contains consequences, requests, and a reference list.

3. The modeling phase is a rehearsal of presentation, which allows a presentation maker to check, to correct the prepared material, and to determine its correlation to the content of his report [1].

When thinking over the time of report, it is necessary to know that 1 or 2 minutes are given for introduction, from 6 to 7 – for the main part, and 2 minutes – for conclusion. The first two and the last two phrases are usually remembered by an audience in the best way.

There are the following principles of preparing presentations.

1. Each slide should contain one information block. It is not recommended to place several information sections simultaneously on the same slide if they are not connected with each other. If this rule is broken, attention of an audience is distracted. While a speaker explains information from the first section, an audience automatically starts looking at the next one, because a “picture” holds attention stronger than aurally perceived information.

2. Phrases presented on a slide should be laconic and unambiguous. While making a slide, it is necessary to correct text materials: to select only the main (key) information, to omit the secondary one, and to formulate phrases accurately. If there are not so many words on a slide, information is perceived better. It is useful to transform text information into a scheme, consisting of graphically organized and ambiguously understood word-combinations.

3. The slide design should meet the requirement of qualitative material presentation (text, figurative, and schematic). Very often materials given on a slide cannot be read because of the small font, inappropriate combination of letters and background colors, and other mistakes. Photographs, portraits, and illustrations presented in a little format or low-quality image are useless. Too thin / thick or too bright arrows can distract attention of an audience from important parts of a scheme.

4. All presentation slides should be made according to the principle of uniformity. This requirement is connected with a font size and type, a background color, a color of text, and graphic elements.

Selection of the font

All slides of a presentation should have the same font. Semi-bold font is used for highlighting headings and key words. Italic type is necessary to distinguish comments and secondary information.

To read text information presented on a slide from a long distance the font size should not be less than 24. It is necessary to remember that the size of different font types doesn’t look the same.

When choosing the font it is necessary to take into account the specifics of perceiving fonts of different types.

Serif font can be applied for representing a large amount of text information. When using this font, letters join to each other, and words are perceived as a single entity. These peculiarities significantly accelerate the process of perception.

Sans-serif font is characterized by accurate symbol outlines. Traditionally, sans-serif font is used for writing headings. Distinct inscriptions attract attention of an audience and are usually noticed from a long distance.

Fantasy (ornate) fonts are characterized by quaint outlines and exquisite forms; materials are not perceived in a good way from a long range. That’s why a presentation maker should avoid using the small font size and a large amount of text information.

Selection of the color

When choosing the background and text color correlation the principle of contrast is used. The text color should be in contrast with the background color and vice versa.

In the choice of the background and text color correlation two variants are possible: light background – dark text; dark / bright (vivid) background – light text.

Information in these two cases is perceived in different ways. It is proved that in the second case (dark / bright background – light text) information is perceived slower, and reading quickly fatigues an audience, though slides look more elegant. That’s why if the speed of slide perception, the integrity and steadiness of visual image (text scheme, examples, etc.) are important, it is better to use the first variant (light background – dark text). Besides, it is necessary to use solid colors for writing a text, for example, dark or saturated such as black, dark-red, dark-blue, and dark-green (but not orange, light brown, which are not so contrast) and white or pastel colors for a background.

Use of photographs and illustrations

Illustrations should be of a good quality, they should not deform in expansion to the entire screen. It is advisable to place only an illustration and an inscription under it on a slide. Other text information should be perceived aurally.

Use of animations and sound effects

One of the mistakes in a presentation is a number of non-functional animations and side tones that hold attention on the senseless object moving and distract an audience from listening to a report. An animation should be used minimally only in the case if it has the functional goal: emerging elements in a particular sequence, removing necessary elements. The same rule is also connected with sound effects. Even if there is quiet background music, it makes excessive noise and doesn’t let an audience listen to information and understand it properly. The exception is a video record that a speaker is going to discuss after watching.

Thus, a multimedia presentation is a significant tool that promotes better understanding of a public speech. It allows a speaker to make his report more informative, to focus attention of an audience on the most useful things, and to form steady visual images. When preparing for a public speech, it is necessary to think about the question concerning the efficient and rational use of this instrument. In the process of developing a presentation it’s important to take into account not only the content of information, but also the general principles of making slides.

Reference list

1. Kovalyova M.A., Rutkovsky A.L., Bolotaeva I.I., Zarochentsev V.M. Practical Recommendations for Preparing and Holding Presentations. Training manual. M.: World of Science, 2019. 127 p.

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