Introduce Yourselves

 

PowerPoint Tips

 

 

Things You Might Want to Include

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A photo and your name on the first slide (sort of like an introductory paragraph in a paper)

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Your musical background and education

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Your experiences in music education - what kinds of positions you have held in the past

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Your present status in music education - what you are doing now

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Why you are pursuing this degree

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Your hopes/goals/plans for the future

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Your hobbies and interests outside of music

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Your extracurricular musical activities

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Your family

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Significant influences in your life 

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Don't forget a concluding slide (like a concluding paragraph in a paper)

 

 

Feel free to be creative and to include any other information about yourself that you deem appropriate. 

Try your introductory presentation out on your significant other or a good friend.  Let them tell you what you left out!

 

 

 

General PowerPoint Tips for Your Introductory Presentation

 

 

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Don't pick a background that fights your content.  In other words, text should be plain and readable.   Avoid using bright red backgrounds or text, which is difficult to read.  On the other hand, don't use a plain white background.  This is a presentation and should be attractive.

 

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Be sparing with text.  The idea of a presentation is to draw in your audience, not to write a research paper.  You should not use paragraphs or bullets with many lines of text.  Depending upon how much text is on each slide, you should probably have at least 10-15 slides.  Say what you want to say, but spread it out.  More slides with less text per slide is the preferred default.

 

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Use graphics and photos on your slides and not just text. This is a presentation, not a paragraph on slides.

 

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Be careful that text does not "bleed over" into graphics as that is hard to read.  Put the text in a text box to control the space.

 

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Make sure the photos, graphics you choose are not fuzzy or "pixelly" when sized to your choice.  Note:  one of my pet peeves is to see pictures that have been stretched to fit a space, causing them to be disproportionate (people look much thinner or fatter than they really are).  Enlarge or crop the picture, don't stretch it or smash it.

 

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Don't use a lot of animation - words and pictures flying in and out.  A little of that goes a long way.  A lot is distracting and annoying.  Don't have words bouncing onto the slides. 

 

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Don't use bullets unless you are listing points.  You should never use one bullet on a page.  If you don't need a bullet, don't use one.  They are not for dividing paragraphs.

 

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Choose one or two fonts only (heading and body text can be different).  This will make your presentation more unified and will look more professional.  Don't use a different font on every page.  Remember that if you use a font that might not be loaded on my computer, I won't be able to read it properly.   Otherwise, when I open your project, it might look like the one below (an actual example).

 

If you want to use a non-standard font, please embed it into your PowerPoint file.  Under "PowerPoint Options," choose "Save" and in that window, check the box that says "Embed fonts in the file."

 

 

 

Created and maintained by Vicky V. Johnson