An appeal for the lost art of rhetoric

I've just been to a presentation at my work where Powerpoint was used by the two speakers. As far as corporate presentations go this was not bad and the slides were mostly used to flag up the main points.

However too often Powerpoint is used as a crutch and as a replacement for making a good rhetorical presentation. I've lost count of the wasted hours taken up by sitting through interminable presentations using slides crammed with information.

If you ever make presentations at your work, take it from me, a hardened listener (with a hardened rear posterior) , just don't use it. If you feel you must, just use a couple of slides. Try to communicate and converse with your audience and think through the flow and layout of your "words".

I've always thought this but I'm posting about it now because I've just read this article in today's Times which shows that new research shows that using Powerpoint is a waste of time! Our brains are just not designed to listen to a talk and read text at the same time. Well that explains it!