December 17, 2003
The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation
My colleague Dennis Jerz recently posted about the current (and continuing) controversy about Powerpoint literacy sparked by Edward Tufte. I've only seen a few Powerpoint presentations that have had me riveted; most of the time I find the slides unnecessary and distracting supplements to the speech (at best) and often dismal failures guilty of all that Edward Tufte has claimed (at worst). Few teachers I know have the art of the electronic slideshow mastered and most speakers (of which I include student presenters) use them as a crutch and a sheild when they try to practice public speaking. But there can be an artistic use of them, and I think the best powerpoints are probably those which are composed on powerpoint first, rather than as a transcription or reduction of notes/research/text that has appeared elsewhere.
If you haven't seen it already (it's three years old and has been mentioned all over the place), you must check out The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation by Peter Norvig. (Be sure to read the Speaker's Notes, of course, as well as the "Making Of" link).
This is a great example of how parody can make a point better than a direct critique. Here the lesson is clear: Powerpoint presentations generally muddle meaning...and if Lincoln were using Powerpoint, he probably never would have composed such an eloquent speech. (There's also a parody of Tufte's critique of Powerpoint, but it's not as good as the Gettysburg critique)
Anyway, Norvig's parody reminds me of an excercise I used to do in composition classes, to teach the idea of paraphrase. I'd ask students to paraphrase the Gettysburg Address -- to put it in their own words and try to make it sound modern without losing the power. A difficult task. And one which actually steers students away from paraphrasing, which is something I don't want them to do, so I stopped teaching it this way (I now just give them a sample of such a paraphrase, as an example of when one should NOT paraphrase (i.e., if the original source already says it best, don't paraphrase!). A quick internet search tells me that others routinely still teach paraphrasing in this way -- by having students revise the Gettysburg Address. The speech is a great model of all sorts of rhetorical tricks and tropes and I suspect this is why many students memorize it to this day. I no longer teach rewriting the Address, but I think the reason this exercise appealed to me in the first place is that it asked students to inherently process ideas through what is for all intents and purposes a parodic method of thought. Is every paraphrase a parody? This is a philosophical issue which I don't have time to expound on, but my gut tells me that yes, despite intentions, it is. The more social the text, the more parodic the paraphrase becomes. Even an unintential revision of a famous catchphrase or advertising slogan can become a joke. And parody disempowers the authority of the original text: it robs it or saps it of its hold over us. So rewriting something you memorized in grammar school is a radical, transgressive act!
My thoughts have rambled here in a way they never would if I were powerpointing...or if I hadn't finished grading the other day. Happy Xmas break.
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Comments
That's a good point, Ben. Our faculty were given a PowerPoint on grade inflation on our campus a year ago and it exhibited exactly what you say: statistics delivered in an easy to see fashion. Like all technology, it's a tool, and it's really how one uses it that makes all the difference. In my view, it's the same thing as an overhead projector, saving plastic and transparencies. But I can also see the side of the argument that suggests that this "tool" enables intellectual laziness on behalf of some users.
Yes, when a slide actually conveys information -- when it presents a quotation that you want to analyze, a picture you want the audience to see, or data you want to sort and visualize, then it's very helpful. But I can't tell you the number of student presentations I've seen that slavishly follow the PowerPoint templates, or that include a slide that reads "Introduction, Background, Examples, Conclusion," where the student kills time by saying "In my introduction, I will...". In this case, the PowerPoint environemnt is being used as a composition tool (or crutch, as Mike suggested), and making the framework that visible is a way for the student to say to the professor, "See how organized my presentation is? See how I've written something for each of the sections you said my presentation has to have?" That sort of thing does nothing for the audience.
A good PP presentation is like a good OHP presentation, or a good set of paper handouts before a talk or lecture. It should be information that you simply cannot verbally deliver. As others have mentioned, charts and graphs and maps and images fall into this category.
The person who delivers the presentation doesn't need the slide show - they can have their own lesson plan. In fact, in most cases, the PP presentation _is_ the lesson plan. Why do the presentees need to see that?
I am not a teacher or in academia, but I used to be in the military and now I am in IT. The armed forces are actually quite good at teaching people how to teach, and the business world generally isn't. There is nothing inherently good or bad about PowerPoint - it's how it is used. I personally believe that everyone who gets to a point in their career where they have to teach should have to attend some courses in teaching.
I found your site while searching on Yahoo for examples of blogs. I am trying to start my own and I'm trying to learn how this works.
I think that Peter Norvig's use of PowerPoint for the Gettysburg Address did much to raise the debate. However, after attempting to prepare my own PowerPoint presentation of the Gettysburg Address, I have written a formal rejoinder to Mr. Norvig. I invite comments on it.
this is an awsom preentation, the best I have ever seen, bravo zulu to the creator who made the power point in 1863.
I must note that PowerPoint is invaluable for 30-minute scientific research presentations. You make up a few slides that show the important numbers and center the talk around those. Everyone can see the numbers and how they compare to each other, and if 10 minutes later they've forgotten, you can just page back.
A PowerPoint presentation is no substitute for a well-written technical paper, though. As NASA has learned.