Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I think bullet points capture the worst of both worlds. You have text (which people focus on, rather than on the presenter), but you don't have enough that one could learn from them outside the presentation.

There's a saying that bullet points are called so because they 'kill' a presentation, and I think there's some truth to that.




I think short bullet points are great. That way the audience can take them in quickly (I highlight one at a time to prevent them from reading ahead/behind) without being distracted for more than a fraction of a second. It also helps people to see how many items are being discussed (e.g., "there are three reasons that language X is better than language Y"). For me at least, that makes it easier to remember the reasons, since it functions as a checksum.


Do you mean that full paragraph is better? Strong disagree if so.


Perhaps not full paragraphs, but the phrase-style nature of bullet points has never really helped me understand the material. If there must be text, I would rather see complete sentences on a presentation.

I've used the assertion-evidence framework[0] for presentations[1] before, where the idea is to have a complete sentence at the top of your slide, with images below that illustrate your point.

[0] https://www.assertion-evidence.com/ [1] While these presentations _were_ about engineering, they were more educational than technical in nature.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: