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10 Common Presentation Mistakes

Avoiding common pitfalls in your presentations.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Most of us have experienced dull, irrelevant or confusing presentations. But think back to the last really great presentation you saw – one that was informative, motivating and inspiring. Wouldn't you love to be able to present like that?

This article looks at 10 of the most common mistakes that speakers make when giving presentations. By avoiding these, you'll make your presentations stand out – for all of the right reasons, and none of the wrong ones.

Mistake 1: Not Preparing Enough

Steve Jobs was a famously inspiring speaker. His speeches may have looked effortless, but, in reality, each one took days or weeks of preparation.

Careful preparation is essential. The amount of time you spend on planning depends on your situation, but it's a good idea to start early – you can never be too well-prepared.

Proper preparation also helps you to manage presentation nerves . When you know your material inside and out, you're far less likely to feel nervous. Our presentation planning checklist and Skillbook " Even Better Presentations " can help you to plan your next event properly.

Mistake 2: Not Familiarizing Yourself With the Venue and Equipment

Imagine that your presentation starts in an hour. You arrive at the venue and, to your horror, the projector won't work with your laptop. The slides you spent hours preparing are useless. This is a disaster!

You can avoid a situation like this by taking time to familiarize yourself with the venue and available equipment at least once before your presentation.

Often, the sorts of problems that can jeopardize your presentation will be situations beyond your control, but this doesn't mean that you're helpless. Conduct a risk analysis to identify potential issues, and come up with a good "Plan B" for each one.

Mistake 3: Ignoring Your Audience

Sometimes, speakers can get so wrapped up in delivering their presentations that they forget about the needs of their audience.

Start your presentation by telling your audience what to expect. Let them know what you'll cover first, whether and when you'll stop for a break, if you'll be taking questions during the presentation, and so on.

Providing these "signposts" up front will give your audience a clear idea of what to expect, so that they can relax and concentrate on your presentation.

Mistake 4: Using Inappropriate Content

The primary purpose of any presentation is to share information with others, so it's important to consider the level you'll pitch it at.

Do some research on your audience. Why are they here? How much do they already know about your topic, and what do they most want to learn from you? It's no use giving a presentation that's so full of jargon that no one understands you. But you wouldn't want to patronize people, either.

Try to put yourself in people's shoes, to get a clearer idea about their needs and motivations. You can also greet individuals as they arrive on the day, and ask questions to get a feel for their level of knowledge. This will also help you to personalize your presentation and make a connection with each person in your audience, so that they'll be more attentive to what you say.

Mistake 5: Being Too Verbose

Short, concise presentations are often more powerful than verbose ones. Try to limit yourself to a few main points. If you take too long getting to your point, you risk losing your audience's attention.

The average adult has a 15- to 20-minute attention span. So, if you want to keep your audience engaged, stick to the point! During the planning phase, make a note of the themes you want to cover and how you want to get them across. Then, when you start filling out the details, ask yourself: "Does my audience really need to know this?"

Our articles on the 7 Cs of Communication and Communications Planning have more tips for communicating in a clear, concise way.

Mistake 6: Using Ineffective Visuals

Poor slides can spoil a good presentation, so it's worth spending time getting yours right.

We've all seen slides with garish colors, unnecessary animation, or fonts that are too small to read. The most effective presentation visuals aren't flashy – they're concise and consistent.

When choosing colors, think about where the presentation will take place. A dark background with light or white text works best in dark rooms, while a white background with dark text is easier to see in a brightly lit room.

Choose your pictures carefully, too. High-quality graphics can clarify complex information and lift an otherwise plain screen, but low-quality images can make your presentation appear unprofessional. Unless an image is contributing something, embrace the negative space – less clutter means greater understanding. Use animation sparingly, too – a dancing logo or emoji will only distract your audience.

Mistake 7: Overcrowding Text

The best rule of thumb for text is to keep it simple . Don't try to cram too much information into your slides. Aim for a maximum of three to four words within each bullet point, and no more than three bullets per slide.

This doesn't mean that you should spread your content over dozens of slides. Limit yourself to 10 slides or fewer for a 30-minute presentation. Look at each slide, story or graph carefully. Ask yourself what it adds to the presentation, and remove it if it isn't important.

Mistake 8: Speaking Incoherently

Even though we spend a significant part of the day talking to one another, speaking to an audience is a surprisingly difficult skill, and it's one that we need to practice.

If nerves make you rush through a presentation, your audience could miss your most important points. Use centering or deep breathing techniques to suppress the urge to rush. If you do begin to babble, take a moment to collect yourself. Breathe deeply, and enunciate each word clearly, while you focus on speaking more slowly.

Our article on better public speaking has strategies and tips that you can use to become a more engaging speaker. One useful technique is storytelling – stories can be powerful tools for inspiring and engaging others. Our Expert Interviews with Annette Simmons and Paul Smith have tips that you can use to tell great stories.

Mistake 9: Showing a Lack of Dynamism

Another common mistake is to freeze in one spot for the duration of your presentation.

Some presenters feel most comfortable behind the podium. Try to emulate great speakers like Steve Jobs , who moved purposefully around the stage during his presentations.

As well as working the stage, he used gestures and body language to communicate his excitement and passion for his subject. Pay attention to what your hands are doing – they're important for communicating emotion. But only use gestures if they feel natural, and avoid being too flamboyant with your arms, unless you want to make your audience laugh!

See our Expert Interview, " Winning Body Language ," to learn more about body language and what it says to your audience.

Mistake 10: Avoiding Eye Contact

Have you ever been to a presentation where the speaker spent all of their time looking at their notes, the screen, the floor, or even at the ceiling? How did this make you feel?

Meeting a person's gaze establishes a personal connection, and even a quick glance can keep people engaged. If your audience is small enough, try to make eye contact with each individual at least once.

If the audience is too large for this, try looking at people's foreheads. The individual may not interpret it as eye contact, but those sitting around them will.

It takes practice and effort to deliver a good presentation. But, if you know how to avoid the pitfalls, your presentations will be great.

Common presentation mistakes include not preparing properly, delivering inappropriate content, and speaking poorly.

Time spent on careful planning always pays dividends. Check out the venue, and familiarize yourself with equipment in advance to avoid possible problems.

Keep your content clear and concise, with visual aids to match. And make sure that you pitch it at the right level for your audience's understanding, so that your presentation doesn't patronize or bewilder.

Remember, public speaking is a performance. Practice speaking clearly with a slower pace than your normal speech to avoid "rapid-fire" delivery. Use eye contact, body language and gestures that complement your message to keep your audience engaged.

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Blog > Common mistakes in PowerPoint and what makes a bad presentation

Common mistakes in PowerPoint and what makes a bad presentation

08.09.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

Creating and giving a good presentation is actually not that difficult. If you know how to do it. Otherwise, no matter how much effort you put into it, it can quickly turn out to be a bad presentation.

Here we show you some examples of bad PowerPoint slides and common mistakes that are often made in presentations so that you won’t make them in your next presentation and avoid "Death by PowerPoint".

1. Reading aloud instead of speaking freely

One aspect in bad presentations is often that the text is simply read out. Prepare your presentation so well that you can speak freely. The goal is to build a connection with your audience and get them excited about your topic. However, this will hardly be possible if you only read from a piece of paper or your computer the whole time. Your audience should feel addressed, if you just read off, they will be bored and perceive your presentation as bad, even if your content and your PowerPoint are actually good.

2. Technical Problems

The sound of the video you inserted on a slide is not on, your laptop does not connect to the beamer, or your microphone does not work. These are just some of the problems that could occur during your presentation.

But nothing is more annoying than when technical problems suddenly occur during a presentation or even before, when everyone is waiting for it to start. It interrupts your flow of speech, only distracts the audience from the topic and breaks concentration. So before you get started with your presentation, it is important to first start your PowerPoint in the place where you will give it later, practice there and familiarize yourself with the technology.

• Don't forget the charging cable for your laptop
• Find out beforehand how you can connect your laptop to the beamer. Find out which connection the beamer has and which connection your laptop has. To be on the safe side, take an adapter with you.
• Always have backups of your presentation. Save them on a USB stick and preferably also online in a cloud.
• Take a second laptop and maybe even your own small projector for emergencies. Even if it's not the latest model and the quality is not that good: better bad quality than no presentation at all.

3. Losing the attention of your audience

One of the most common mistakes in presentations is to lose the attention of your audience. Especially in long presentations it is often difficult to keep your audience’s attention and to avoid “Death by PowerPoint”. Anyone who has had this experience knows how uncomfortable it is to give a presentation where you notice that no one is actually really listening to you. Especially if your presentation is an eternally long monologue, it is difficult to get the topic across in an exciting way and to captivate the audience.

Our tip: Include interactive polls or quizzes in your presentation to involve your audience and increase their attention. With the help of SlideLizard, you can ask questions in PowerPoint and your audience can easily vote on their own smartphone. Plus, you can even get anonymous feedback at the end, so you know right away what you can improve next time.

Here we have also summarized further tips for you on how to increase audience engagement.

4. Avoid eye contact

You want your audience to feel engaged in your presentation, but if you avoid eye contact the whole time, they certainly won't. Avoid staring at just one part of the wall, at your paper or your computer. If the participants have the feeling that you are just talking to the wall, it is a bad presentation. Speak to your audience, involve them in your presentation and make it more exciting for them.

But also make sure you don't always look at the same two or three people, but address everyone. If the audience is large, it is often difficult to include everyone, but still try to let your eyes wander a little between your listeners and look into every corner of the room.

5. Speaking incoherently

Avoid jumping from one topic to the next and back again shortly afterwards. Otherwise your audience will not be able to follow you after a while and their thoughts will wander. To prevent this, it is important that your presentation has a good structure and that you work through one topic after the other.

Nervousness can cause even the best to mumble or talk too fast in order to get the presentation over with as quickly as possible. Try to avoid this by taking short pauses to collect yourself, to breathe and to remind yourself to speak slowly.

6. Many colors mixed with each other

Make sure that your presentation is not too colorful. If you mix too many colours, bad presentation slides will result very quickly. A PowerPoint in which all kinds of colors are combined with each other does not look professional, but rather suitable for a children's birthday party.

Think about a rough color palette in advance, which you can then use in your presentation. Colors such as orange or neon green do not look so good in your PowerPoint. Use colors specifically to emphasize important information.

It is also essential to choose colors that help the text to read well. You should have as much contrast as possible between the font and the background. Black writing on a white background is always easy to read, while yellow writing on a white background is probably hard to read.

7. Too minimalistic design

Even though it is often said that "less is more", you should not be too minimalistic in the design of your presentation. A presentation where your slides are blank and only black text on a white background is likely to go down just as badly as if you use too many colors.

Empty presentations are boring and don't really help to capture the attention of your audience. It also looks like you are too lazy to care about the design of your presentation and that you have not put any effort into the preparation. Your PowerPoint doesn't have to be overflowing with colors, animations and images to make it look interesting. Make it simple, but also professional.

8. Too much text

The slides of your presentation should never be overcrowded. Write only the most important key points on your slides and never entire sentences. Your audience should not be able to read exactly the text you are speaking in your PowerPoint. This is rather annoying and leads to being bored quickly. Summarize the most important points that your audience should remember and write them down in short bullet points on your presentation.

9. Many different animations

To avoid bad presentations it is important to never use too many animations. It looks messy and confusing if every text and image is displayed with a different animation. Just leave out animations at all or if you really want to use them then use them only very rarely when you want to draw attention to something specific. Make sure that if you use animations, they are consistent. If you use transitions between the individual slides, these should also always be kept consistent and simple.

10. Too many images

Bad presentation slides often occur when their design ist unclear and unorganised. Images and graphics in presentations are always a good idea to illustrate something and to add some variety. But don't overdo it with them. Too many images can distract from your presentation and look messy. Make sure that the graphics also fit the content and, if you have used several pictures on one slide, ask yourself whether you really need all of them.

11. Too many or unreadable fonts

Never combine too many fonts so that your presentation does not look messy. Use at most two: one for headings and one for text. When choosing fonts, you should also make sure that they are still legible at long distances. Script, italic and decorative fonts are very slow to read, which is why they should be avoided in presentations.

It is not so easy to choose the right font. Therefore, we have summarized for you how to find the best font for your PowerPoint presentation.

12. Images as background

To avoid bad presentations, do not use images as slide backgrounds if there should be also text on them. The picture only distracts from the text and it is difficult to read it because there is not much contrast with the background. It is also harder to see the image because the text in the foreground is distracting. The whole thing looks messy and distracting rather than informative and clear.

13. Reading from the slides

Never just read the exact text from your slides. Your audience can read for themselves, so they will only get bored and in the worst case it will lead to "Death by PowerPoint". You may also give them the feeling that you think they are not able to read for themselves. In addition, you should avoid whole sentences on your slides anyway and only have listed key points that you go into more detail then.

14. Turn your back

Never turn around during your presentation to look at your projected PowerPoint. Not to read from your slides, but also not to make sure the next slide is already displayed. It looks unprofessional and only distracts your audience. In PowerPoint's Speaker View, you can always see which slide is currently being displayed and which one is coming next. Use this to make sure the order fits. You can even take notes in PowerPoint, which are then displayed during your presentation. You can read all about notes in PowerPoint here.

15. Forgetting the time

Always pay attention to the time given. It is annoying when your presentation takes much longer than actually planned and your audience is just waiting for you to stop talking or you are not able to finish your presentation at all. It is just as awkward if your presentation is too short. You have already told everything about your topic, but you should actually talk for at least another ten minutes.

Practice your presentation often enough at home. Talk through your text and time yourself as you go. Then adjust the length so that you can keep to the time given on the day of your presentation.

16. Complicated Structure

The structure of your presentation should not be complicated. Your audience should be able to follow you easily and remember the essential information by the end. When you have finished a part, briefly summarize and repeat the main points before moving on to the next topic. Mention important information more than once to make sure it really gets across to your audience.

However, if the whole thing gets too complicated, it can be easy for your audience to disengage after a while and not take away much new information from your presentation. So a complicated structure can lead to bad presentations and "Death by PowerPoint" pretty quickly.

17. Inappropriate clothes

On the day of your presentation, be sure to choose appropriate clothing. Your appearance should be formal, so avoid casual clothes and stick to professional dress codes. When choosing your clothes, also make sure that they are rather unobtrusive. Your audience should focus on your presentation, not on your appearance.

18. Inappropriate content

Think about who your audience is and adapt your presentation to them. Find out how much they already know about the topic, what they want to learn about it and why they are here in the first place. If you only talk about things your audience already knows, they will get bored pretty soon, but if you throw around a lot of technical terms when your audience has hardly dealt with the topic at all, they will also have a hard time following you. So to avoid "Death by PowerPoint" in this case, it is important to adapt your presentation to your audience.

You can also ask a few questions at the beginning of your presentation to learn more about your audience and then adapt your presentation. With SlideLizard , you can integrate polls directly into your PowerPoint and participants can then easily answer anonymously from their smartphone.

19. Too much or unimportant information

Keep it short and limit yourself to the essentials. The more facts and information you present to your audience, the less they will remember.

Also be sure to leave out information that does not fit the topic or is not relevant. You will only distract from the actual topic and lose the attention of your audience.

20. Monotone voice

If you speak in a monotone voice all the time, you are likely to lose the attention of your audience. Make your narration lively and exciting. Also, be careful not to speak too quietly, but not too loudly either. People should be able to understand you well throughout the whole room. Even if it is not easy for many people, try to deliver your speech with confidence. If you are not enthusiastic about the topic or do not seem enthusiastic, you will not be able to get your audience excited about it.

Examples of bad presentations to download

We have created a PowerPoint with examples of bad presentation slides and how to do it right. You can download it here for free.

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About the author.

Helena Reitinger

Helena supports the SlideLizard team in marketing and design. She loves to express her creativity in texts and graphics.

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Pop-up events.

Pop-up events only last for a short period of time, such as only for one night or one month. An example: Another location of a shop is opened for only one month to extend the reach.

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Bad Presentations: How To Avoid Common Presentation Pitfalls In 2023

Table of contents.

It’s easy to make a presentation, but it’s difficult to make a good presentation.

There are simple mistakes that are made when it comes to the fine art of designing and performing a presentation if you haven’t been doing it for the past 15 years, over and over, like we have!

In this article we explore the common pitfalls most presentation designers/presenters make , and how you can avoid them.

What Impact Can A Bad Presentation Have?

Bad presentations and good presentations have something in common, they’re memorable. Whether it’s a speech at a wedding, or pitching to investors, if it’s bad, it stands out.

The impact a bad presentation can have on your, your business or your brand is profound. It’s more than just the performance on the day. In today’s world, everyone is connected and people talk. It’s difficult to shift your image if you make the wrong impression.

Below are just a few hurdles you can expect to face if your presentation bombs.

Loss Of Confidence In You Or Your Company

When you have or give a bad presentation, it’s easy for your audience to lose confidence in you. After all, at that moment in time, you’re the face of the company and a direct representation of who you represent.

If you drop the ball, that’s what your audience is going to expect you to do if they decide to partner with you. How can they do business or trust in you if they don’t have confidence in you.

Fortunately, we understand how much hard work, time, and dedication it takes just to get the opportunity to deliver a presentation to your audience, your clients, your investors, or your own company. Which is why our presentation design services will help take care of the visual and organizational side of your slides.

We Can Make You Look Goood!

You Can Develop A Negative Reputation

Ineffective presentations are a waste of time, and as we all know, time is valuable. Simple things like unpreparedness, lack of audience engagement, talking too much, a poorly structured or visual presentation design.

These things DO NOT go unnoticed and you will develop a reputation that will most certainly work against you professionally. It takes a lot more work to repair damage that it does to put your best foot forward in the first place.

Slower Business Growth

If your presentation misses out on the key points and the words you’ve chosen for your slides are poor, you will experience slower business growth as there is less information for your audience about your brand. If they are missing out on the key idea because your slides are too simple, they won’t want to buy into your brand.

Here Are The Most Common Mistakes You Can Make With Your Presentation

There’s common mistakes that are both easy to make and easy to avoid if you know what you are looking for. There are common mistakes presenters make because most presentations have too much information, pictures and the information that you as the presenter are trying to communicate gets lost in the jumble of the presentation.

Talking Too Much About Yourself

Presenters who spend too much time speaking about themselves while they present is one example of a common mistake. The audience members want the informative information about your brand, not the informative information about you as the speaker.

Focusing Too Much On Facts And Not Storytelling

You want to engage your audience by using both facts and storytelling to sell them on your brand. If you focus too much on facts, it’s the worst thing you can do for your presentation because you’ll quickly lose your audience’s attention.

Poorly Designed Visual Aids

Visual aids are important to making a great presentation, but not if they are poorly designed. It’s important to have engaging visual aids, dark text on white background is a great way to focus the audience’s attention. Make your presentation your own by choosing well designed visual aids that add to your presentation as a whole.

Disorganized Information (No Logic Or Order)

Are your slides all over the place? Your examples don’t make sense to your brand? The worst presentations are hard to follow, confusing and distracting from the main points. An audience wants to sit through an engaging presentation, and by having order and logic to your slides with words that point back to your idea, you will capture their attention and keep them captivated.

Too Much Information

If you have too many points on your slides, or paragraphs that you’ll be reading off during your presentation, you have too much information. Have less on the slides, keep to the point and spend more time talking directly to your audience rather than reading to them.

No Engagement Or Interaction

A common pitfall that is easy to fall into, is not interacting with the audience members, by making eye contact, allowing time for questions or asking questions to the audience. They are sitting right in front of you (Physically or Virtually) so interact with them right from the beginning so they expect it throughout the presentation. If you need some tips on how to make a presentation interactive , we’ve got you covered.

If you’re looking for a few tips on, this article on being a better presenter can help.

Reading Directly From Your PowerPoint Presentation

When you read directly from the PowerPoint Presentation, your body language is not open to the audience, and it means that you aren’t engaging with either the material or your listeners. If you spend time in preparation and writing out what you will be saying, you can speak directly to the audience and portray confidence in your brand. By purposefully making eye contact, you are connecting with those who are listening to you.

Ending The Presentation Abruptly

When you finish your talk and forget to allow time for questions, you are sending a message that you don’t care about the audience’s understanding of the material you have presented. All it takes is one slide to finish a presentation well and leave space for the audience to ask questions.

Animation Overload

When you overload on animation, you make your presentation look cheap and distracting from your important points. It’s an easy way to make ineffective presentations, as it’s distracting to the main goal of your presentation. Keep animations to a minimum and bullet points on your slides instead to create engaging presentations.

So Is A Bad Presentation Worth The Risk?

Don’t talk too much about yourself, but tell stories about your brand so the audience can connect with you as the presenter and your company. You want to engage with the audience through well chosen visual aids, and keep order to your information both in your slides and your speech. Don’t overload in cheap looking animations and always leave room for your audience to ask questions at the end.

It’s best to be prepared, put our best foot forward and invest the time/money in making sure you’re well rehearsed and have some kick ass slides to back you up. Effort and intent are noticed, as long as they’ve been put it.

Are You In Need Of A Good Presentation To Give The Right Impression?

Your slides are more than just beautiful graphics, they’re opportunities for you to share your stories/ideas. Leave the PowerPoint, Prezi, Google Slides to us and focus on nailing the public speaking part!

Just click the button below and get the conversation started today! We’re here to support you, so connect with a Presentation Geek and take the first step towards a presentation that blows your competition out of the water.

Author:  Content Team

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In This Article

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• Equipment Isn't Working

Information Underload

Lack of focus.

• Reading From the Screen
• Too Many Visual Aids
• Fonts Too Small
• Bad Design Templates
• Too Many Slides
• Unusual Color Combinations

The Bottom Line

Welcome to Bad Presentation Techniques 101 . Almost everyone has sat through a bad presentation with poor techniques and unprepared presenters. There are also scenarios where presenters read verbatim from the presentation, mumble through their speech, or use way too many animations in their PowerPoint . Below are various presentations one has likely experienced, along with the solution on how to rectify it.

The Equipment Isn't Working

Many have experienced the scenario where the audience is settled, and the presenter is set and ready to start their presentation. All of a sudden, the projector doesn't work. Naturally, the presenter didn't bother to check out all of the equipment before starting.

To correct this presentation technique, it is recommended that presenters check out all of the equipment and rehearse their presentation, using the provided projector long before their time to present. Bringing extra tools needed like a projector bulb is a good idea, along with having a point of contact for a technician if things get beyond the presenter's control. If possible, presenters can check the lighting in the room they will be presenting in, prior to their time in the limelight, especially so they can dim the lights as needed during their speech.

Presenters may have experienced memorizing only the content of their presentation. In this scenario, someone in the audience may have a question and panic can set in. Because the presenter has not prepared for questions, all they know about on the topic is what is already written on the slides.

To rectify this situation, presenters should know their material so well that they could easily do the presentation without an electronic enhancement such as PowerPoint. Presenters can use keywords and phrases that include only essential information, to keep the audience focused and interested on the presenter. Lastly, speakers should be fully prepared for questions and know the answers or have an idea of how to guide the audience member.

The opposite of information underload, presenters may find themselves knowing  so much about a topic that they jump all over the place. This creates a situation where the audience has no idea how to follow the thread of the presentation because there is none. 

The way to fix this situation is to use the K.I.S.S. principle, which translates to "Keep It Simple Silly." When designing a presentation, presenters can stick to three or four points at most about their topic. Then, presenters can expand on the information so that the audience is most likely to absorb it and understand the main points being driven.

Reading Directly From the Screen

Imagine a setting where an audience member raises their hand and mentions that she can't read the slides. In this case, the presenter may graciously tell her that they will be reading the slides directly to her. As the presenter proceeds to do so, they look up at the screen and each of the slides is filled in with the text of their speech. The problem here is that the presenter is not needed if the slides provide all of the information for the audience members.

Simplifying the content is the key here. Presenters can keep the most important information near the top of the slides for easy reading in the back rows. They can also focus on one topic area and use no more than four bullets per slide. It's important for presenters to speak to the audience, not to the screen.

Using Visual Aids in Replacement of Scarce Content

Presenters might figure that no one will notice that they didn't do much research on their topic if they add many visual aids, like photos, complicated graphs, and other diagrams.

This mistake is huge. Presenters need to create presentations that include well-researched content and topics that the audience is looking for. Illustrating points with true substance is a good format to follow, and visual aids such as  photos, charts, and diagrams should be used in addition to content, to drive key points of the demonstration home. After all, visual aids add a nice break to the material but must be used correctly in order to enhance the overall oral presentation.

Setting the Font on the Slides Too Small

Small script type fonts might look great when audience members are sitting mere inches away from the monitor; however, presenters who don't consider audience members with poor sight, or those who are sitting a decent distance away from the screen, will miss out on an engaged audience who had the potential to read the slides.

It is best for presenters to stick to  easy-to-read fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman. Presenters should avoid script type fonts which are generally hard to read on screens. It is also suggested for presenters to use no more than two different fonts — one for headings, and another for content. Lastly, presenters should use no less than a 30 pt font so that people at the back of the room can read them easily.

Choosing Poor or Complicated Design Templates

Presenters sometimes make decisions in their presentation based on what they hear. For example, imagine a presenter who heard that blue was a good color for a design template or design theme. They may have found a cool template on the internet and went for it. Unfortunately, in the end, the presentation ends up being about a context that doesn't match the look and feel of the visual presentation itself.

This scenario can be easily fixed when presenters decide to choose a design template that is appropriate for the audience. A clean, straightforward layout is best for business presentation, for instance, while young children respond well to presentations that are full of color and contain a variety of shapes .

Including Too Many Slides

Some presenters go overboard with their slide count. For instance, imagine the presenter who recently went on a fantastic vacation cruise and included all 500 beach photos in their slides. Presenters who use too many slides, or too much personal content, are bound to hear snores in the room.

Presenters should ensure their audience stays focused by keeping the number of slides to a minimum. It is recommended to use 10 to 12 slides. Some concessions can be made for a photo album since most pictures will be on screen for only a short time, and this will require a judgment call based on how the audience will feel and respond.

Losing the Message With Animations

Presenters can forget the focus of their presentation when using too many animations and sounds with the goal to impress everyone. This ultimately fails to work most of the time, because the audience doesn't know where to look and will lose the message of the presentation.

While animations and sounds that are used well can heighten interest, it is important for presenters to keep them to a minimum. Otherwise, this flair will distract the audience. Presenters can design their presentation with the "less is more" philosophy so that the audience doesn't suffer from animation overload.

Picking out Unusual Color Combinations

Some presenters love unusual color combinations together, but a PowerPoint presentation is not the time to use them. For example, an orange and blue combination is unsettling to an audience and there may be people present who cannot see red and green due to color blindness.

Presenters should use good contrast with the background to make their text easy to read. Here are a few tips:

• Dark text on a light background is best but avoid white backgrounds. Tone it down by using beige or another light color that will be easy on the eyes. Dark backgrounds are very effective, but make a text a light color for easy reading.
• Patterned or textured backgrounds make text hard to read.
• Keep the color scheme consistent.

To be a good presenter , presenters need to be engaging with the audience and know their topic. Presenters should ultimately keep the presentation concise and include only relevant information. They should use an electronic enhancement, such as PowerPoint, as an accompaniment to their presentation to reinforce points, not as a crutch. Presenters should keep in mind that a slideshow is not the presentation — they are the presentation.

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7 ways to give a BAD presentation

1. Do a minimal amount of preparation Of course no one would be stupid enough to do no preparation. But, if you want to give a bad presentation, try just doing a tiny amount of preparation. Just scribble down your thoughts maybe the night before your presentation.

Whatever you do, don’t start thinking about your presentation days or even weeks in advance. Psychology tells us that people often have “Eureka!” moments – times when they come up with great ideas – when they think about a topic and then set it aside to focus on other things. So, to make sure you have no time to come up with inspirational ideas, make sure you do only a tiny bit of preparation just before your presentation.

2. Forget about structure Good presenters think about the right order in which to put their material. So, if you want to give a bad presentation, don’t do this.

For example, good presenters sometimes use the “problem-solution” structure. At the start of their presentation, they might introduce their presentation and say something like: “I’m going to point out four major problems we’re facing, and then I’ll tell you about the solutions to each one.”

Another common type of presentation structure is based on an acronym. For instance, when I give presentations on how to tell stories, I often use the SOAR acronym, which stands for Situation, Obstacles, Actions, Results. By using the four-letter acronym SOAR, I provide people with an easy way to remember the four stages of storytelling.

There are lots of different presentation structures. But the key to giving a bad presentation is to make sure you don’t use any at all.

3. Don’t do any rehearsal I do a lot of one-to-one training and coaching with managers who need to make a great impact. And they often rehearse their presentations two, three, four or even more times. Yes, when a presentation is really critical, they rehearse, get feedback and rewrite their content multiple times.

So, if you’re looking to give a bad presentation, don’t rehearse at all. By avoiding rehearsal, you’ll hesitate and have more “um” and “ah” words in your presentation – you definitely won’t sound confident. This way, you’ll help yourself on the way to giving a memorably bad presentation.

4. Read from a script or slides One of the best ways to annoy an audience is just to read from a sheet of paper or the note cards in your hands. Reading a script means you can’t make eye contact, which is a guaranteed way to give a bad presentation. To be honest, I don’t see this happening very often. However, I do see a lot of people reading from their slides, which should also ensure you give a bad presentation.

If you are mainly just reading your slides, then you make yourself redundant. After all, you could just send your slide deck to people and have them read it for themselves.

Good presenters add further value by adding in further insights. But as this piece is about how to give a bad presentation, then make sure you don’t add in any further comments or additional explanation at all.

5. Forget about engagement or entertainment Bad presenters think of presentations as being opportunities to communicate only factual information. So, make sure you just state the facts while maintaining the same tone of voice and using the same pacing throughout your presentation.

In contrast, good presenters understand that it’s important to engage and even entertain an audience. If an audience isn’t attentive, they’ll chat amongst themselves or just check their phones.

Good presenters are like great actors – they vary how they use their voices. They speak more loudly or more softly at times. They allow the pitch of their voices to go up when they are enthusiastic or using humour; they allow the pitch of their voices to go down when they are discussing more serious topics.

Great presenters also often prepare amusing comments or think about funny situations that they can talk about. Their humour may seem spontaneous, but it’s often not.

Anyway, to deliver a bad presentation, just stick to communicating dry facts in a monotonous voice. Don’t use rhetorical questions to get your audience thinking. Don’t ask actual questions to get your audience involved. And to ensure that you don’t accidentally engage or entertain your audience, make sure you never introduce the occasional photo, video or touch of humour either.

6. Don’t get feedback on how you come across One of the best ways to ensure you give bad presentations time after time is to avoid asking for comments and advice on how you come across. Don’t ask for feedback from colleagues and customers. And definitely don’t ask for constructive criticism and help from a professional coach.

A great way to stay bad is to assume that people in your audience will spontaneously offer you their comments and advice. The truth is that most people don’t like to deliver negative messages – so even when they see really bad presenters, they usually don’t say anything.

Even asking people in an audience how you came across often doesn’t work. Audiences are so reluctant to be critical in person that they often mumble platitudes designed to keep a presenter happy – rather than help the presenter to improve. The only way to get good quality feedback is to get people to write their comments anonymously.

So, to be bad – and stay bad – at presenting, don’t seek out the guidance of a coach or the anonymous written feedback of audiences.

7. Don’t include any stories, anecdotes or examples Talking about facts and plans is the best way to ensure you are perceived as someone who is giving a bad presentation. So, make sure you include plenty of statistics and pieces of data. Talk endlessly about the actions that you have taken or the upcoming plans that your audience should be aware of.

To be a bad presenter, don’t include any stories, anecdotes or examples in your presentation. After all, examples can help to make abstract concepts more easily understood. Stories can sometimes generate emotions, which would make your presentation more engaging and memorable, too. Anecdotes about things that have happened to you or other people can give audiences a breather from the relentless pace of most presentations.

I often see presenters making several of these mistakes at the same time. But if you are determined to be truly bad at giving speeches and presentations, try doing all 7 at the same time.

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10 Bad PowerPoint Slides Examples to Avoid

Creating a presentation and putting all your efforts in, but even the slightest mistake or negligence can result in a bad PowerPoint slide. Understand the mistakes commonly made while creating PowerPoint presentations, examples of a bad PowerPoint presentation and how to avoid it.

A presentation serves two purposes: 1) it teaches your audience something new and 2) motivates them to take action. However, achieving these goals is only possible if your audience is engaged in your presentation. Your presentation is your story, whether hosting a webinar, teaching an online course, training a new employee, pitching a business idea, or sharing a project with your team. 

What you say matters; your audience’s attention matters. A successful presentation determines how many people connect with your story, how much they remember, and improvements for next time. Various elements in a presentation can make or break its look. Knowing and avoiding practices that can make your presentation dull and non-engaging is vital. 

We’ll walk through some examples of bad PowerPoint Slides to help you avoid common mistakes while creating a presentation. 

What Makes a Bad PowerPoint Presentation?

Everyone talks about good examples, but even a basic mistake can make your fantastic-looking presentation bad. Learning from really bad PowerPoint examples can be as valuable as following the best practices of good PowerPoint examples . Let’s walk through some of the bad PowerPoint presentation slides that would make your eyes ache and content so dull it could put an insomniac to sleep. 

With these really bad powerpoint examples, you can save your presentation from being a disaster and turn them into engaging slides:

• Too much text on slides
• Too many animations
• Using too many colors on one slide
• Being too minimalistic
• Using only pictures and difficult-to-understand fonts
• Keeping the image behind the text
• Flow charts on the slides do not make sense
• No symmetry in texts and pointers
• Using only bullet points and no paragraphs
• Keeping the size of the font too small

1. Too much text on slides 

PowerPoint is a handy tool, but remember, it’s there to enhance your presentation, not steal the spotlight from you. The key here is to make it a visual assistant that doesn’t simply mimic your words but assists you in giving visual suggestions. Overloading your slides with text is the fastest way to make your presentations dull and monotonous. Those walls of text can instantly overwhelm your audience, and we’ve all been there, irritated by text-heavy slides. 

Going further, scripting your entire speech on the slides can trip up even the smoothest talkers. We all know it seems easy to read word to word while giving presentations, but it kills the natural flow and direct interaction with your audience. Moreover, such text-heavy bad PowerPoint slides will result in a rigid, unengaging presentation and steal your spotlight.

Bad PowerPoint Slide Example with Excessive Text:

2. Too many animations 

There are plenty of PowerPoint animations , and they can be tricky to use. There are more than 150 animations in PowerPoint, and some presentations seem determined to test them all. However, it is vital to note that using a lot of animations and transitions can make your presentations look less polished and outdated. When everything on a slide is animated, it can be distracting and even exhausting for your audience. 

Moreover, excessive animations can be a headache for the presenter, too. If each element requires a click to appear or disappear, it’s not the most efficient approach, and it makes for a bad PowerPoint presentation example. Due to many animations and transitions, presenters inadvertently give away what’s coming next, disrupting their timing and distracting the audience, who start anticipating the next point instead of focusing on your words.

Bad PowerPoint Slide Example with Heavy Animation:

3. using too many colors on one slide.

Do not treat your PowerPoint presentation as a canvas. It is not a color pallet to mix and present different colors. Talking about color might seem like a deep dive, but you can be something other than a color theory guru to nail a good-looking presentation (though it’s a plus). Here’s the golden rule: KEEP IT EASY TO READ! 

Bright and flashy colors like red or neon might not be your best bet for a presentation.

Also, think about contrast to ensure your audience can read effortlessly. Simple combos, like black text on a white background or vice versa, work like a charm. Conversely, white text on a grey background can be a readability nightmare. Having non-contrasting colors can make for bad PPT examples, and nobody wants colors in their presentation to clash, right?

 Example of Worst PowerPoint Slide with Too Many Colors:

READ MORE: Effective Colour Palette Combination for Presentations

4. Being too minimalistic

Adding everything to your presentation is a problem, but not adding the required colors, graphics, and text is a bigger problem. It can make the slide look dull and empty. Sometimes, professionals can get carried away with the “less is more” idea. While using a variety of color palettes in one presentation can make it look unprofessional and strain the eyes, there are better options than going all-white. 

Keeping presentations too minimalistic might give off the impression – that you didn’t put in the effort. Plain slides are an example of a bad PowerPoint presentation and don’t motivate the audience to pay attention. 

Example of Bad PowerPoint Slide with Too Much Minimalism:

EXPLORE: 40,000+ PowerPoint Templates and Google Slides Themes

5. Using only pictures and difficult-to-understand fonts

Another example of bad PPT slides is cluttering the presentation with only graphics and difficult-to-understand fonts. Like with colors and animations, the “less is more” principle holds here. Your primary focus should be making your presentation easy to read and understand for your audience. Take fonts, for instance. Avoid ones like “Impact Typeface,” which have cramped letters. Fancy fonts, especially those that mimic italics, can be problematic too. 

Example of Ugly PowerPoint Slide with Difficult To-Read Font:

READ MORE: Best Presentation Fonts

Now, onto images. Stay moderate; too many images can distract your audience significantly if they overlap. When considering multiple photos, ask yourself if you need them all or if one can represent the others. Slides with an excessive number of pictures can be a visual mess. While images are great for illustrating points and reducing text, an overload makes your presentation look outdated.

6. Keeping the image behind the text

Whoever thought of using an image as a background probably missed the memo. Images and text simply don’t go well together. Overlaying text on an image makes for one of the worst PowerPoint presentation examples. Keeping the image in the background makes reading the text complex, and the main image needs to be clarified. With the mix-up of colors in the background, finding a text color that stands out is nearly impossible, and all those colors just pull your attention away from the words. To save your presentation from this disaster, avoid using images as slide backgrounds when you’ve got text to showcase.

Really Bad PowerPoint Slide Example with Invisible Text:

EXPLORE: Best PowerPoint Backgrounds Collection

7. Flow charts on the slides do not make sense

If you want to use flow charts in your PowerPoint presentation, this one’s for you. The first rule for flowcharts is simple: they should be easy to understand. A flowchart can explain things in a presentation, but a well-crafted PowerPoint should make sense. The flowchart, like the one shown below, will destroy the look of your slide and needs to be clarified. By seeing this bad PowerPoint presentation example below, you need to help understand what’s happening. What is connected to what? Therefore, even if you intend to simplify the information, it will only reach your audience with a clear flowchart. 

Bad PowerPoint Presentation Example with Messed up Flowcharts:

EXPLORE: Customizable Flowchart PowerPoint Templates

8. No symmetry in texts and pointers

The lack of balance or alignment between textual content and accompanying visual elements like arrows , bullets, or other pointers can make your presentations look unprofessional and unappealing. When text and pointers are haphazardly placed, it’s challenging for the audience to follow a logical flow of information, making up for a bad PowerPoint slide example. Without symmetry in your presentation, you’re only distracting your audience; they will be preoccupied with deciphering the relationship between the text and visuals.

Example of Bad PowerPoint Presentation with No Symmetry:

9. Using only bullet points and no paragraphs

Using only bullet points in your slide is one of the worst PowerPoint presentation ideas! In a PowerPoint presentation, simplifying paragraphs into bullet points is a smart move to make it more audience-friendly. However, it’s essential to clarify that this means more than merely slapping only bullet points and not including any paragraphs. 

Here’s a helpful rule of thumb: “Only use 5-8 bullet points”, and if you find yourself shrinking text to 12 or 10 points, you’ve got too much text on your hands, and you can’t put all of it in the bullets. Having overly lengthy bullet points might not be to everyone’s liking, and some even read like full-blown paragraphs.

Ugly PowerPoint Presentation Example with Just Bullets and No Paragraphs:

10. Keeping the size of the font too small 

Last on this list of bad PowerPoint examples is keeping the font size too small, making it look invisible. Font size plays a very crucial role in the presentation. Imagine being served a delicious pizza and handed a magnifying glass to find the toppings. Wouldn’t it kill the mood? The same applies to your PowerPoint presentation. Imagine everything in your slide is on point: the colors, the graphics, the animation, the information, but your audience can’t even read what you are presenting. A quick test is to stand at the back of the room where you’ll present, and if you can still read the font comfortably, then you’re good to go. 

Worst PowerPoint Presentation Example with Small Font:

Tips to Avoid Making the Worst PowerPoint Slides!

Creating a standout PowerPoint presentation boils down to two fundamental principles: 1) it must captivate visually and 2) convey clarity of message. Sometimes, the temptation arises to favor one at the expense of the other. The absence of a delicate balance between engagement and transparency unites all these ugly PowerPoint slides examples. Here are some things you should keep in mind:

• Avoid stuffing slides with too much text in an effort for clarity, which often results in a boring, overwhelming presentation that distracts from the speaker. 
• Refrain from overloading slides with excessive images or animations to boost engagement; it can backfire, resulting in confusion and an unprofessional look.
• Microsoft provides numerous resources to achieve a well-balanced look for your presentation, including colors, graphics, images, embedded videos, and animations. The key is to use them wisely. 
• Before finalizing any presentation, you can ask a few questions from a spectator’s perspective. Can I replace this lengthy sentence with a picture or a keyword? Are the fonts crystal clear? Do the visuals or animations prove distracting? Are the colors harmonious, or do they strain the eyes?

READ MORE: Most Important Presentation Tips

You can craft an exceptional PowerPoint presentation by balancing engagement and clarity perfectly. However, striking this balance requires a lot of practice. The best and worst PowerPoint presentation examples clearly show how to keep this equilibrium.  

As we’ve seen, it’s easy to take a presentation from good to worse by neglecting one side in favor of the other; the next time you’re gearing up to create a presentation, consider getting the help of professional presentation services . 

Presentation service providers like SlideUpLift can help you strike the perfect balance of engagement and clarity, ensuring your audience stays focused while your message shines through. Whether you want to tweak every part of your presentation or adjust the fonts and colors, going for a presentation service provider like SlideUpLift ensures that your unique style is consistently reflected in your slides. You can book a consultation call to learn more about these services.

Explore SlideUpLift presentation design services to create eye-catching PPTs. You can give the custom-slides service a shot.

Why are bad PowerPoint slides a problem?

Bad PowerPoint slides can hinder effective communication, leading to audience disengagement and a failure to convey your message. They can distract, confuse, or even bore your audience, ultimately defeating the purpose of your presentation.

What common mistakes result in a really bad PowerPoint Presentation?

Common mistakes that result in bad PowerPoint slides include overcrowding slides with excessive text or complex graphics, using small fonts, lacking visual consistency, and neglecting the balance between engagement and clarity. You can avoid this by engaging your audience, conveying your message clearly, and creating a visually appealing and well-structured presentation that supports your content effectively.

How can I improve my PowerPoint slides and avoid making bad ones?

You must focus on simplicity, use visuals wisely, maintain consistency in design and fonts, and balance engagement and clarity. In addition to all these points, getting help from professional presentation providers can help you make top-class presentations easily.

. Are there resources or services available to help improve PowerPoint presentations?

Yes, SlideUpLift is one of the most trusted professional presentation service providers. They provide design and content layout expertise, including PowerPoint templates , Google Slides templates , presentation services , custom slide services , etc. You can book a consultation call with us to learn more about these services.

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Module 8: Developing and Delivering Business Presentations

Bad presentations, learning outcomes.

• Discuss common mistakes in presentations

For many, the prospect of developing and delivering a business presentation rates right up there with death and taxes. Interestingly, that same mixture of fear and loathing is often felt by audience members as well. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The ability to craft a compelling story is a skill as old as the human race, and the need to communicate is as primal and potentially powerful.

Figure 1. Akhenaten as a sphinx, and was originally found in the city of Amarna.

For millions of years before the invention of modern technology, humans used the tools available to perpetuate traditions and culture and to document—and often rewrite—history. Do a few internet searches and immerse yourself in the Egyptian tombs; the caves of Chauvet; or El Castillo, the Temple of Kukulcan. What you’re experiencing is a feat of both artistry and communication. Although we don’t know the full significance of these early carvings and structures, there’s no doubt that these early humans captured their world view in a way that is still deeply resonant. While the tools have changed, the communication challenges—and opportunity—remain the same: to communicate an engaging and inspiring point of view.

Regardless of whether you want to change the world, build your brand, or build a billion-dollar business, effective presentation skills are essential. To quote legendary investor, philanthropist and Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffet, “If you can’t communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you’re giving up your potential.” [1] As would be expected of a numbers person, Buffet has quantified his point in talks on student campuses and professional organizations. Speaking at his alma mater in 2009, Warren Buffett told Columbia Business School students that he believed learning effective communication skills could translate into 50 percent higher lifetime earnings.

Given our vibrant storytelling tradition and with so much at stake, why are there still so many bad presentations? Wouldn’t you think that modern communication technology—considering the advances in graphics and communications software alone!—would lead to more compelling presentations? Interestingly, the problem is, to some extent, the technology. It’s estimated that 30 million PowerPoint presentations are created every day, with (seemingly) a majority of presenters opting for default layouts and templates. The problem is, we’re wired for story, not bullet points. A related failure is our use of available technology.

Seth Godin has a wonderful—and instructive—rant on these points: Really Bad PowerPoint (and how to avoid it) , blaming Microsoft wizards, templates, built-in clip art and lazy presenters for ineffective presentations. In response to a question regarding “death by PowerPoint” on the TechTarget Network, Margaret Rouse provided this definition: “a phenomenon cause by the poor use of presentation software,” identifying the primary contributors of this condition as “confusing graphics, slides with too much text and presenters whose idea of a good presentation is to read 40 slides out loud.” [2]

So how do we avoid causing “death by PowerPoint”—or by whatever presentation software we use? The common denominator of presentation mistakes is that they represent a failure of communication. This failure can be attributed to two errors: too much or too little. The error of too much is generally the result of trying to use slides as a teleprompter or a substitute to a report, or, it would seem, to bludgeon the audience into submission. Of course, this tends to have an alternate effect, namely, prompting audience members to walk out or tune out, turning their attention instead to doodling or their device of choice.

What bad presentations have too little of is emotion. Presentation expert and author of the classic Presentation Zen (and 4 related books) Gar Reynolds captures the crux of the problem: “a good presentation is a mix of logic, data, emotion, and inspiration. We are usually OK with the logic and data part, but fail on the emotional and inspirational end.” [3] There’s also a hybrid too little-too much mistake, where too little substance and/or no design sensibility is — in the mind of the presenter — offset by transitions and special effects. Heed Seth Godin’s advice: “No dissolves, spins or other transitions. None.” [4]

The 10/20/30 rule, generally attributed to venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, is a good guideline to help you achieve a “just right” balance in your presentations. Geared for entrepreneurs pitching their business, his advice is a discipline that would improve the quality—and, effectiveness—of most presentations. In brief, 10/20/30 translates to a maximum of 10 slides, a maximum of 20 minutes and a minimum of 30 point font. [5]

Figure 2. Your presentation should have no more than 10 slides, take no more than 20 minutes, and use type no smaller than 30 point font.

While this rule is a good starting point, it doesn’t overrule your audience analysis or understanding of your purpose. Sometimes, you may need more slides or have a more involved purpose—like training people in new software or presenting the results of a research study—that takes more than 30 minutes to address. In that case, go with what your audience needs and what will make your presentation most effective. The concept behind the 10/20/30 rule—to make new learning easy for your audience to take in, process and remember—should still be your guide even if you don’t follow the rule exactly.

How to Avoid Death By PowerPoint

For more on how to avoid causing death by PowerPoint, watch Swedish presentation expert and How to Avoid Death By PowerPoint author David Phillips TED Talk on the topic:

Practice Question

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Improve this page Learn More

• Gallo, Carmine. " How Warren Buffet and Joel Osteen Conquered Their Terrifying Fear of Public Speaking ," Forbes . May 16, 2013. ↵
• Rouse, Margaret. " What is death by PowerPoint? " TechTarget Network . ↵
• Reynolds, Garr. “ 10 tips for Improving Your Presentations Today ,” Presentation Zen. Nov 2014. ↵
• Godin, Seth. Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint . Ebook, sethgodin.com, 2001. ↵
• Kawasaki, Guy. The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint . December 2005. ↵
• Bad Presentations. Authored by : Nina Burokas. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Echnaton (Akhenaten) as Sphinx. Authored by : Hans Ollermann. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/4nvAVm . License : CC BY: Attribution
• How to avoid death By PowerPoint. Authored by : David JP Phillips. Provided by : TED. Located at : https://youtu.be/Iwpi1Lm6dFo . License : All Rights Reserved

• Effective Presentation Skills Tutorial
• Common Reasons for Ineffective Presentations
• Not engaging the audience in the beginning of the presentation
• Poorly organized information (no order or logic) or lack of clear purpose
• Poorly designed presentation materials (poor color contrast, background design, font size or type, etc.)
• Incorrect or misleading graphs, charts and visuals
• Too many bullets per slide, or too many lines for each bullet
• Lack of preparation and rehearsal
• Lack of confidence and enthusiasm about the topic
• Inconsistent pace (too much time spent on one part and too little time left for the rest)
• Lack of eye contact with the audience, poor body language and looking at or talking towards the screen
• Inaudible or monotone delivery, mispronunciation of words and reading the slides verbatim
• Not knowing how to use delivery technologies or not being prepared for the technology available
• Poor or incorrect use of technology tools or spending too much to get the technology working
• Not following time limits (too much material) and lack of consideration for other presenters
• Mistakes in the content, and glaring spelling and grammatical errors in the slides
• Ending the presentation abruptly, not leaving enough time for questions and answers and not handling questions and answers well
• Preparing for the Presentation
• Organizing the Presentation
• Designing Effective Presentation Materials
• Rehearsing the Presentation
• Delivering the Presentation
• Handling Questions and Answers
• Presentation Skills Quiz
• Presentation Preparation Checklist

Presentation Training Institute

A division of bold new directions training, what to do after a poorly received presentation.

It’s bound to happen at some point. You prepare well. You practice over and over. Then, you step in front of the audience and bomb your presentation. So, how do you recover after a poorly received presentation? The truth is, public speaking failures can be a learning experience and rather than being embarrassed by them, you need to learn from them and start again. Here are a few things you can do to recover from a bad presentation. 

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

A bad presentation can be traumatizing and can lead people to avoid public speaking ever again. If it happens to you, the first thing you should do is hold your head up high and remember that you can’t hit it out of the ballpark every time. Public speaking is like falling off a bicycle- you’ve got to pick yourself up and get right back on. When you have messed up a presentation, it’s not healthy to dwell on it for too long. Give yourself time to “grieve” the poor performance and then take active steps to improve for next time. 

Examine What Went Wrong

You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge so it’s time to take a hard look at your presentation and figure out what went wrong. If you received negative feedback from audience members, make notes of everything that was mentioned. If you already know what went wrong, write it down and then think about why. If you stumbled over your words, was it because you were too nervous or you didn’t prepare enough? If you had faulty technology, did you test it out prior to your presentation? If you missed the mark with your audience, did you research your audience beforehand? The answers to these questions will help you understand exactly where you went wrong so you can avoid those same mistakes in the future. 

Change the Way You Prepare

Perhaps you gave a presentation that was all over the place. Or it might have been your nerves getting the best of you. Whatever it was that led to your poor presentation, you want to be sure and do something different next time. First, narrow down your topic to something more specific. Then, research your audience so you know who you will be presenting to and what their motivation is for listening. Now you need to organize your speech into a few key points, typically no more than three. Use a few pieces of evidence to support each key point. Don’t forget to add in an attention getter at the beginning and a strong conclusion at the end. Finally, rehearse your presentation several times before the big day. Do so in front of family and friends who can offer honest feedback and critiques. 

Get a Coach or Take a Class

If you are struggling with how to improve your presentation skills, you should consider hiring a coach or attending a professional presentation training course. This will help you develop the skills necessary to give a dynamic presentation. It will also help you build confidence so you don’t feel as nervous the next time you present. If you have a career that involves giving a presentation from time to time, this could be a very beneficial investment in your future. 

• Presentation

What bad presentation qualities are and how to avoid them

• May 6, 2022

Presentation isn’t just about what you say, but also the way in which your words are said. Presentations can be a powerful tool for sharing information with an audience and giving them something worth remembering; however, there is always room to improve on presentation skills by making sure all aspects of our Presentation design services align properly

The experts never stop searching for identity bad presentation characteristics. They read up on presentation techniques, observe their competitors in action, and are relentless when it comes time to improve themselves further–they have a thirst that many people don’t even know about yet!

Table of Contents

Not making eye contact with the audience

Gesturing with your hands is a great way to show that you’re invested in what’s being said. It also makes it easier for people around the room, even those at an angle or behind something else, can hear everything clearly without any difficulties whatsoever!

Fidgeting or playing with objects on the desk

Maintaining eye contact with the person you’re speaking to is one way of showing that they are interested in what you have going on. If not, then avoid making fidgety movements as this can be seen as nervousness or lack of confidence when really there’s nothing wrong at all!

Speaking too fast or too slow

Spelling is important because it shows the passion you have for your work. If someone mistakes “at” as an incorrect word and writes ‘it’, then they will lose out on potential opportunities! Don’t be afraid of making typos; every writer makes them sometimes even if he/she tries really hard not to (especially when stressed).

Using jargon or technical terms that people don’t understand

If you’re not an expert in your field, then jargon can be Verizon. Avoid using technical language that might confuse or impress those around us with less knowledge than we do because it will just end up looking bad!

Making jokes that fall flat

The best way to make your audience laugh is by telling jokes that they’ll enjoy. Make sure the humor you use isn’t offensive or just plain bad, because if it is then no one will want anything more from what you have going on at all!

When presenting, it is important to follow some simple guidelines. These will ensure that your presentation lasts as long and has just the right amount of PowerPoint slides in order not only to keep people engaged but also to give them something great!

How to avoid bad presentation characteristics?

Use visuals that support your message and match your tone and style. Avoid using too many, too complex, or irrelevant visuals, as well as low-quality or inconsistent ones.

How can you make a good presentation even more effective?

Focus on your audience’s needs. Keep your message simple. Smile and make eye contact. Start strong. Use storytelling. Speak effectively.

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There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.

• While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history , the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.
• According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ), "Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact." 1
• Scientific information taken from natural sources (such as ice cores, rocks, and tree rings) and from modern equipment (like satellites and instruments) all show the signs of a changing climate.
• From global temperature rise to melting ice sheets, the evidence of a warming planet abounds.

The rate of change since the mid-20th century is unprecedented over millennia.

Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.

The current warming trend is different because it is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia. 1 It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun’s energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.

Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Scientists demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases in the mid-19th century. 2 Many of the science instruments NASA uses to study our climate focus on how these gases affect the movement of infrared radiation through the atmosphere. From the measured impacts of increases in these gases, there is no question that increased greenhouse gas levels warm Earth in response.

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of warming after an ice age. Carbon dioxide from human activities is increasing about 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age. 3

The Evidence for Rapid Climate Change Is Compelling:

Global Temperature Is Rising

The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and other human activities. 4 Most of the warming occurred in the past 40 years, with the seven most recent years being the warmest. The years 2016 and 2020 are tied for the warmest year on record. 5 Image credit: Ashwin Kumar, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

The Ocean Is Getting Warmer

The ocean has absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 100 meters (about 328 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit (0.33 degrees Celsius) since 1969. 6 Earth stores 90% of the extra energy in the ocean. Image credit: Kelsey Roberts/USGS

The Ice Sheets Are Shrinking

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 279 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2019, while Antarctica lost about 148 billion tons of ice per year. 7 Image: The Antarctic Peninsula, Credit: NASA

Glaciers Are Retreating

Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa. 8 Image: Miles Glacier, Alaska Image credit: NASA

Snow Cover Is Decreasing

Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and the snow is melting earlier. 9 Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Sea Level Is Rising

Global sea level rose about 8 inches (20 centimeters) in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and accelerating slightly every year. 10 Image credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk District

Arctic Sea Ice Is Declining

Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. 11 Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Extreme Events Are Increasing in Frequency

The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events. 12 Image credit: Régine Fabri,  CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Ocean Acidification Is Increasing

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30%. 13 , 14 This increase is due to humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the ocean. The ocean has absorbed between 20% and 30% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in recent decades (7.2 to 10.8 billion metric tons per year). 1 5 , 16 Image credit: NOAA

1. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, WGI, Technical Summary . B.D. Santer et.al., “A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere.” Nature 382 (04 July 1996): 39-46. https://doi.org/10.1038/382039a0. Gabriele C. Hegerl et al., “Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method.” Journal of Climate 9 (October 1996): 2281-2306. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1996)009<2281:DGGICC>2.0.CO;2. V. Ramaswamy, et al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling.” Science 311 (24 February 2006): 1138-1141. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1122587. B.D. Santer et al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes.” Science 301 (25 July 2003): 479-483. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1084123. T. Westerhold et al., "An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years." Science 369 (11 Sept. 2020): 1383-1387. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1094123

2. In 1824, Joseph Fourier calculated that an Earth-sized planet, at our distance from the Sun, ought to be much colder. He suggested something in the atmosphere must be acting like an insulating blanket. In 1856, Eunice Foote discovered that blanket, showing that carbon dioxide and water vapor in Earth's atmosphere trap escaping infrared (heat) radiation. In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized Earth's natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. In 1938, Guy Callendar connected carbon dioxide increases in Earth’s atmosphere to global warming. In 1941, Milutin Milankovic linked ice ages to Earth’s orbital characteristics. Gilbert Plass formulated the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change in 1956.

3. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, WG1, Chapter 2 Vostok ice core data; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record O. Gaffney, W. Steffen, "The Anthropocene Equation." The Anthropocene Review 4, issue 1 (April 2017): 53-61. https://doi.org/abs/10.1177/2053019616688022.

4. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

5. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20170118/

6. S. Levitus, J. Antonov, T. Boyer, O Baranova, H. Garcia, R. Locarnini, A. Mishonov, J. Reagan, D. Seidov, E. Yarosh, M. Zweng, " NCEI ocean heat content, temperature anomalies, salinity anomalies, thermosteric sea level anomalies, halosteric sea level anomalies, and total steric sea level anomalies from 1955 to present calculated from in situ oceanographic subsurface profile data (NCEI Accession 0164586), Version 4.4. (2017) NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index3.html K. von Schuckmann, L. Cheng, L,. D. Palmer, J. Hansen, C. Tassone, V. Aich, S. Adusumilli, H. Beltrami, H., T. Boyer, F. Cuesta-Valero, D. Desbruyeres, C. Domingues, A. Garcia-Garcia, P. Gentine, J. Gilson, M. Gorfer, L. Haimberger, M. Ishii, M., G. Johnson, R. Killick, B. King, G. Kirchengast, N. Kolodziejczyk, J. Lyman, B. Marzeion, M. Mayer, M. Monier, D. Monselesan, S. Purkey, D. Roemmich, A. Schweiger, S. Seneviratne, A. Shepherd, D. Slater, A. Steiner, F. Straneo, M.L. Timmermans, S. Wijffels. "Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?" Earth System Science Data 12, Issue 3 (07 September 2020): 2013-2041. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2013-2020.

7. I. Velicogna, Yara Mohajerani, A. Geruo, F. Landerer, J. Mouginot, B. Noel, E. Rignot, T. Sutterly, M. van den Broeke, M. Wessem, D. Wiese, "Continuity of Ice Sheet Mass Loss in Greenland and Antarctica From the GRACE and GRACE Follow-On Missions." Geophysical Research Letters 47, Issue 8 (28 April 2020): e2020GL087291. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087291.

8. National Snow and Ice Data Center World Glacier Monitoring Service

9. National Snow and Ice Data Center D.A. Robinson, D. K. Hall, and T. L. Mote, "MEaSUREs Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Snow Cover Extent Daily 25km EASE-Grid 2.0, Version 1 (2017). Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/CRYOSPHERE/nsidc-0530.001 . http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/snow_extent.html Rutgers University Global Snow Lab. Data History

10. R.S. Nerem, B.D. Beckley, J. T. Fasullo, B.D. Hamlington, D. Masters, and G.T. Mitchum, "Climate-change–driven accelerated sea-level rise detected in the altimeter era." PNAS 15, no. 9 (12 Feb. 2018): 2022-2025. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717312115.

11. https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS, Zhang and Rothrock, 2003) http://psc.apl.washington.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/ http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/projections-of-an-ice-diminished-arctic-ocean/

12. USGCRP, 2017: Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I [Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, 470 pp, https://doi.org/10.7930/j0j964j6 .

13. http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F

14. http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification

15. C.L. Sabine, et al., “The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2.” Science 305 (16 July 2004): 367-371. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1097403.

16. Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate , Technical Summary, Chapter TS.5, Changing Ocean, Marine Ecosystems, and Dependent Communities, Section 5.2.2.3. https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/technical-summary/

Header image shows clouds imitating mountains as the sun sets after midnight as seen from Denali's backcountry Unit 13 on June 14, 2019. Credit: NPS/Emily Mesner Image credit in list of evidence: Ashwin Kumar, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

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What is Good Friday? What the holy day means for Christians around the world

Christians around the world observe Good Friday two days before Easter, but what is it, and why do they commemorate the holy day?

The holiday is part of Holy Week, which leads up to Easter Sunday. Palm Sunday kicks off the series of Christian holy days that commemorate the Crucifixion and celebrate Jesus Christ's resurrection.

"Good Friday has been, for centuries now, the heart of the Christian message because it is through the death of Jesus Christ that Christians believe that we have been forgiven of our sins," Daniel Alvarez, an associate teaching professor of religious studies at Florida International University, told USA TODAY.

What is Holy Saturday? What the day before Easter means for Christians around the world

When is Good Friday?

Good Friday is always the Friday before Easter. It's the second-to-last day of Holy Week.

In 2024, Good Friday will fall on March 29.

What is Good Friday?

Good Friday is the day Christ was sacrificed on the cross. According to Britannica , it is a day for "sorrow, penance, and fasting."

"Good Friday is part of something else," Gabriel Radle, an assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, previously told USA TODAY. "It's its own thing, but it's also part of something bigger."

Are Good Friday and Passover related?

Alvarez says that Good Friday is directly related to the Jewish holiday, Passover.

Passover , or Pesach, is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.

"The whole Christian idea of atoning for sin, that Jesus is our atonement, is strictly derived from the Jewish Passover tradition," said Alvarez.

How is that possible?

According to the professor, Passover celebrates the day the "Angel of Death" passed over the homes of Israelites who were enslaved by the Egyptians. He said that the Bible states when the exodus happened, families were told to paint their doors with lamb's blood so that God would spare the lives of their firstborn sons.

Alvarez says this is why Christians call Jesus the "lamb of God." He adds that the symbolism of the "blood of the lamb" ties the two stories together and is why Christians believe God sacrificed his firstborn son. Because, through his blood, humanity is protected from the "wrath of a righteous God that cannot tolerate sin."

He adds that the stories of the exodus and the Crucifixion not only further tie the stories together but also emphasize just how powerful the sacrifice of the firstborn and the shedding of blood are in religion.

"Jesus is the firstborn, so the whole idea of the death of the firstborn is crucial," said Alvarez.

He adds that the sacrifice of the firstborn, specifically a firstborn son, comes from an ancient and "primitive" idea that the sacrifice unleashes "tremendous power that is able to fend off any kind of force, including the wrath of God."

Why Is Good Friday so somber?

Alavarez says people might think this holiday is more depressing or sad than others because of how Catholics commemorate the Crucifixion.

"I think [it's] to a level that some people might think is morbid," said Alvarez.

He said Catholics not only meditate on Jesus' death, but primarily focus on the suffering he faced in the events that led up to his Crucifixion. That's what makes it such a mournful day for people.

But, the professor says that Jesus' suffering in crucial to Christianity as a whole.

"The suffering of Christ is central to the four Gospels," said Alvarez. "Everything else is incidental."

According to the professor, statues that use blood to emphasize the way Jesus and Catholic saints suffered is very common in Spanish and Hispanic Countries, but not as prevalent in American churches.

Do you fast on Good Friday?

Father Dustin Dought, the executive director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, previously told USA TODAY that Good Friday and Ash Wednesday are the two days in the year that Roman Catholics are obliged to fast.

"This practice is a way of emptying ourselves so that we can be filled with God," said Dought.

What do you eat on Good Friday?

Many Catholics do not eat meat on any Friday during Lent. Anything with flesh is off-limits. Dought says this practice is to honor the way Jesus sacrificed his flesh on Good Friday.

Meat that is off limits includes:

Instead, many Catholics will eat fish. According to the Marine Stewardship Council , this is allowed because fish is considered to be a different type of flesh.

Contributing: Jordan Mendoza ; USA TODAY