Final Presentation
For this culminating assignment, create a PowerPoint presentation on the topic you indicated in your presentation proposal.
Submission Instructions:
A minimum of three academic sources are required.
The presentation must be narrated, and 10 or more minutes in length. Giving a presentation of this nature is excellent practice for public speaking and presenting complex ideas in a clear and understandable way.
This presentation should do the following:
- Present your topic to an audience who is not necessarily familiar with your topic. Clearly define all of the terms and ideas you are using so that your presentation could be effective to a viewer with little to no background knowledge on the topic.
- Convey a clear argument. This presentation must be designed to attempt to convince your audience of the plausibility of your position. It should not be merely expository; it should have a central claim that you are actively defending.
- Be visually attractive. There are a wide variety of resources online, including many helpful video tutorials for making effective PowerPoint presentations on YouTube. This presentation should look and sound professional. The use of slide designs, images, animations, and other features of the software is highly recommended.
Here are a few tips for creating an effective PowerPoint presentation:
- Don't crowd your slides. Generally, a slide should contain the main talking points in the form of bullet points or short sentences. A paragraph here and there is acceptable, but try to avoid slides that are nothing but walls of text.
- The bulk of the information you are presenting should be contained in the narration, not on the slide. The information on the slide is there to serve as a visual hook for the audience, to connect up to what you are telling them.
- Use colors and images. A plain white background with nothing but black text on it is boring to look at. Give your audience something to visually engage with.
- Don't spend too long on a given slide. Roughly a minute a slide is a good goal; avoid going beyond two minutes on a single slide. Keeping the presentation moving will keep your audience focused and engaged. Don't race through, but don't let a single slide sit idly for a long period of time.
All sources should be properly quoted and cited in MLA, APA, or Chicago style format, with a reference or bibliography list on the last page/slide of the assignment (not included in the suggested page/slide count).
Be sure to review the following prior to submitting your assignment:
- We strive for academic integrity in all aspects of education, and you are expected to uphold these standards when creating and submitting your discussion. View the Standards of Student Conduct [webpage] for more information on what that means at APUS.
- Assignment Rubric
- If you do not see the rubric, select Course Tools in the blue horizontal navigation bar and then Assignments. Select the appropriate assignment, and the rubric will be located near the bottom of the page.
- Print a Rubric Preview [webpage]