174 CHAPTER 13^ Presentation Aids
need an easel to hold them. These tips will help you make more professional-looking
posters:• Use rulers or yardsticks to ensure straight lines and avoid a “loving-hands-at-home”
look.
• Use more than one color to attract and hold interest.
• For a more professional look, use computer-created text or adhesive letters.
• To protect posters from becoming bent or soiled, carry them in a portfolio, or cover
them with plastic when you transport them.Flip charts are oversized tablets, lined or unlined; they are common in businesses
and other organizations but rare in college classrooms. Their name reflects the fact that
you can turn the pages. They’re made of paper that varies from tablet thickness to stiffer
weights. Larger charts work well in conference rooms; smaller ones work well for pre-
sentations to just a few listeners.
Flip charts can function like a chalkboard or whiteboard, especially in brainstorm-
ing situations where you interact with your audience. Used this way, you must overcome
disadvantages similar to those of a whiteboard. Your writing may be messy, and writing
on the chart causes you to turn your back on the audience. Some presenters ask a second
person to do the writing.
If you repeat the same presentation for different audiences, prepare your visuals on
heavier-weight flip chart and use them much as you would use a series of posters, expos-
ing each new visual as you discuss it. The separate visuals will stay in order. In addition,
because the cover is stiff, the tablet can stand alone on a table, which makes it a useful
display method when other equipment is unavailable.^24Handouts
Brochures, pamphlets, photocopies, or other handouts free audiences from having to
take extensive notes and give them details they can study later.^25 Handouts can also
provide supplementary information you don’t have time to cover in your speech. At the
end of his health-related speech, one student distributed brochures from his campus
health services; another distributed a photocopied diagram illustrating an origami
project. Handouts are common in business settings; for example, sales representatives
commonly give brochures to potential customers.
Your primary challenge is for the handout to supplement, but not replace your
message so that your audience listens to you instead of just reading the handout. The
following tips apply:• Distribute handouts, face down, before you begin speaking; then, when you discuss
the material on them, ask your listeners to turn them over.
• Mark the points you want to emphasize with a letter or number so you can easily
direct listeners to specific places on the handout. For example, a speaker who distrib-
utes a map could highlight one area with an A, a second area with a B, and a third
with a C and then draw the listeners’ attention to each place as she discusses it.
• Put identical material on a slide and project it as you speak. Highlight the informa-
tion you want them to find on their handout.
• If the handout provides only supplementary information, distribute it at the end of
the speech.In summary, today’s presentation technologies range from high-tech projectors and
computer-generated slides to low-tech handwritten flip charts and posters, providing a
range of options for displaying visual materials. Effective speakers know how to select
and use the types that work best, given their topic and the situation.flip chart tablet you prepare
in advance or create on the
spot; turn to a new page or
tear off and display pages as
you finish them
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