Actually, a slightly larger font wouldn't help.


My objections to PowerPoint presentations don't really have much to do with the way what should be lecture notes become the lectures themselves. To my mind there are greater problems with these presentations than the fact that all too often a lecturer simply reads the very small print that he or she presents to us on the screen. But even so, discovering that we're attending a lecture which we're not only hearing, but also reading, is a distressing experience.

In cases such as this I always find myself wondering why the lecturer doesn't seem to realize that we read more quickly than we hear, so that while he or she is still reading what's on the slide we're already fidgeting in our seats, waiting for the next one to show up on the screen. Invariably, these "notes" appear in a rather miniscule font so that a paragraph or two can be crammed onto a single slide. But although we have to strain our eyes to read what's on the screen, having bigger print wouldn't make much of a difference.

Frankly, it sort of makes you wonder. When we attend a lecture that we could have read, often word for word, from the screen (or from a printed page), is that a sign that the lecturer, like me, feels that in settings such as conferences real time has lost its meaning?



Go to: The tedium of real time.