Why do most people think it's a bad idea to read from slides?

Question

As many of you probably know, almost all advice regarding doing better academic talks includes universal advice to *not* put too many words in any one slide, and to *not* read straight from slides (this is always thought to be a sign of a bad talk).I used to agree with all of this because it sounds reasonable, and anyway that's how I've written my own talks so far. But I went to a conference late last year where a speaker did exactly the opposite of this advice (my field is mathematics). He was literally reading his slides verbatim, and each of his slides was packed full with long sentences. And yet, it was one of my favorite talks of the conference, and for me (a Ph.D student) it was clean, clear, and easy to follow despite the fact that the material was completely new to me. I do think a large part of the reason I found it so clean and clear was precisely because of the talk's structure, and not despite of it.That experience made me rethink my prejudice against speakers who read out of the slides. *For some people, it may be a superior talk strategy to alternatives*, especially in academic fields where the details really matter.So, I am not convinced anymore that it is general (or even, usual) good advice to *not* read from the slides. Why do people think it's such a bad idea? And please don't say "it's lazy" or "could just read the slides instead of listening to the talk" because in practice, neither of these perspectives demonstrate why an alternative is better at *communicating the information*, which is what really matters.

Answer 1

It sounds like the subject of the presentation, the speaker, and your interests and expertise all combined to make this a really positive experience for you.

I think you hit on the key concept when you said that what really matters is communicating information, though I’d add that it’s equally important to communicate so that people care about said information. A sign of a good talk is when the audience members remember and think about at least some of the concepts afterward, even if it’s not their main interest. If everyone has at least one takeaway that sticks with them you’ve done a good job, and if they share that takeaway with another person somewhere down the line, you’ve done a great job.

Some speakers are just so good that they could read straight from the phone book and everyone would be hanging off their words. Some topics are so fascinating that the worst speaker in the world will still have the audience’s full attention. However, most speakers have to work successfully communicate information and get buy-in from the audience.

We’re hardwired to respond to some tones and cadences above others. They’ve done studies that show babies really do prefer - and benefit from - infant directed speech (aka baby talk, or ‘motherese’). What’s more, even two day old babies show that preference, and pay more attention to higher pitched voices with exaggerated vowel sounds and greater pitch variance. Infant directed talk also tends to contain more emotion, and comes with a side of lots of eye contact. It’s also more unpredictable: speakers restructure sentences so new or emphasized words are at the end, which keeps grabbing the baby’s attention.

And what do you know, those are all things that help hold the attention of adult audiences too (not so much the higher pitch thing though, but range of pitch variation is important). Change keeps attention. Even exaggerated vowel sounds appeal to adults; the most popular youtubers, like news anchors, usually have a similar style of speech, and that includes slightly exaggerated vowel sounds. A person’s favorite word is always their own name.

Also, our attention span for presentations is only 7-10 minutes without a break, and that’s if we’re interested (if not, it’s more like 7 seconds).

All of this means that speakers will usually have the most success engaging their audiences if they use very exaggerated and varied communication, lots of sustained eye contact, and change things up regularly (or at least every seven minutes). They can stand in one place for a few minutes before moving across the stage for another few minutes; they can switch from a PowerPoint to a whiteboard; insert an anecdote; etc. When we read from slide our voices tend to flatten out, we can’t make eye contact, and we can’t really move around or utilize the power of the unexpected (tone or content) to keep the audience engaged.

Of course, visual learners will almost always benefit from slides, and an audience will tune out if you’re giving them more complicated information than they can keep track of. Turning to read from a particularly important slide would be a good seven minute change-up in a presentation, but it would be hard for most people to keep an audience’s attention if they just read from the slides. It’s definitely possible, but not the norm.

The amount of information is also a factor. Too much tends to make people tune out, even if it’s something they’d usually find interesting. It’s easier to convince or inspire an audience using smaller chunks of information that grab their interest, even if you go into more detail later. A very dense slide will put a lot of people off.

I’ve been to presentations that were an absolute deluge of information, but the only ones I enjoyed and retained had incredibly engaging and charismatic speakers who used their voices, bodies, and movements (and yes, carefully deployed powerpoints) to keep us all hooked, largely because they never gave us the chance to disengage.

I’ve never been to a great presentation where the speaker read directly from the slides, but I’d be very interested to see one!