2B- Insert Examples to Prove Each Item

Insert Examples to Prove Each Item

Just as we do when we are creating an outline, we often want to OVER EXPLAIN each bullet point. However, that would just be a different form of Data Dumping. Remember that the key to delivering a good presentation is to make it easier for the audience to understand and comprehend. Most people believe that in order to explain a point thoroughly, you need a ton of data. However, the opposite is true. It is actually much better to give an example.

The phrase, “a picture is worth 1000 words,” is very true. A good example or story will create a series of pictures in the minds of your audience members. So, you can explain more with a single example than you would be able to do with thousands of words. For instance…

WORDY EXPLANATION:

Katrina made its third landfall near the Louisiana–Mississippi border with 125-mile-per-hour sustained winds and 928-millibar pressure, still at Category 4 intensity. Its minimum pressure at its second landfall was 920 mbar, making Katrina the fourth-strongest hurricane on record to make landfall on the United States, behind Hurricane Michael’s 919-millibar reading, Hurricane Camille’s 900-millibar reading in 1969, and the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane’s 892-millibar record. (Knabb, Richard D.; Rhome, Jamie R. “Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Katrina.” National Hurricane Center. December 20, 2005.)

AN EXAMPLE:

On Friday night (Aug. 26), some of us boarded up our houses. Others in town were saying that they didn’t want to “overreact” to the hurricane forecasts. But I was running around like crazy, yelling, “This is a (category) four!” I evacuated to my friend’s house with my 81-year-old mother, my 28-year-old niece and my sister-in-law. All night I’d been watching a giant pine tree in a neighbor’s yard. It had been bending mightily, but had stayed rooted. Suddenly I heard a deafening crack, and I yelled, “Run!” Seconds later the tree smashed through the house. We had escaped to the master bedroom closet in the center of the house. My sister-in-law hauled a mattress off the bed and leaned it on top of my mother and my niece. Then we noticed that the walls were heaving, so we raced around the house, opening windows to relieve the pressure build-up.

Looking outside, we watched in horror as the house behind us turned into what looked like a living, breathing monster. The roof would lift, the house would expand, and then the roof would fall. Finally, the house exploded. (Alice Jackson, “One Survivor’s Story”, People Magazine. Sept. 2005)

The clinical version gets you drowsy, but the example keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Create Examples for Your Presentation