Next week in my Landscape Ecology class I will devote a lecture to scientific presentation. I try to follow Michael Alley's methods for scientific presentation, as he describes in "The Craft of Scientific Presentations". I try to teach these things, which are quite different from "conventional" uses of powerpoint, to my students. I think it's a public service to audiences everywhere to teach a different style of presentation.

I was trying to add to what I know about audio visuals in presentation by reading the famous Edward Tufte, who has written some classic books about visualization of scientific information. Tufte's view, expressed in his short book "The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint", is even harsher than Michael Alley's. He's against powerpoint altogether, and advocates the use of printed handouts instead. Displaying information on a screen is so low-resolution that it is a waste of the visual medium, for the most part. Tufte presents the main arguments against powerpoint, a summary of his book, in a Wired article from 2003.

I am still thinking about how and when I will incorporate this. I definitely don't use powerpoint at all talks, but I do where there is a heavy scientific component or a heavy visual component (maps, for example). Tufte will make me think longer before I fire up the powerpoint next...