Death by PowerPoint

Coming from an engineering background, my undergraduate classes were filled with PowerPoint presentations made by engineering professors, who represented the epitome of all the communication skills that engineers are famous for. Every hour class session would be at least a 60 slide presentation with more information per slide than anyone could handle. So much information in fact that you'd go to each class, follow along, and at the end of the semester have a giant review session with about 250 slides filtered out from the hundreds you'd have gone through all semester that basically embodied all you needed in the first place. These presentations all could have been improved by focusing on the key material that the professors wanted to make sure that we knew and leaving the rest for the textbook or in class problems to cover. Additionally, for at least some of my classes, the presentations were so thorough and well organized that the audience did not need to be there for the actual presentation to learn or absorb the material at all. In some classes this was welcome because attendance was not necessary and that allowed students to be more flexible with their schedules. However, when attendance was mandatory, these types of presentations where the professors basically read the slides aloud to their audience was met with some resentment. This YouTube video is particularly apt: Further, I think a great example of how everyone acknowledges how terrible PowerPoint presentations can be is the phenomenon called PowerPoint Karaoke. At PowerPoint Karaoke events, a series of random slideshows are made and the contestants take turns giving one of these presentations that they have never seen before. This is a great exercise for learning how to think very quickly on your feet, since the winners are those who can carry a main point or thesis all the way through without getting stumped or sidetracked. A PowerPoint Karaoke Presentation: http://youtu.be/m6lsBJRQLK4?t=32s The skills required for giving effective presentations are important to attorneys even outside the courtroom because the skills essentially boil down to effective communication. Communicating and thinking on your feet are essential for all practitioners because of the negotiations and explanations (whether it be with an opposing counsel, a client, or even a boss) that lawyers navigate through each day.