View source for Blunders to Avoid

<h1 align=center>Blunders to Avoid</h1>

<p>There are some things that can slip into a presentation that will destroy all
the good work you’ve put into it. Typically these involve spelling and grammatical
errors.</p>

<p>Your audience will typically consist of people from many different backgrounds
with different types of education. You want to convince them that you are well
educated and intelligent. That way they can believe what you say. Giving them the
impression, through blunders, that you are not competent will ruin your efforts
to persuade them.</p>

<h2>Spelling Errors</h2>

<p>Spelling errors are the most likely thing to make you appear to be uneducated, and
will cause the audience to quickly form a negative impression of you. You might be
the smartest technical person in the world, but if you have spelling errors in your
presentation the audience will probably think that you’re not that smart after
all.</p>

<p>The good news is that PowerPoint will help you in this area. PowerPoint has a huge
dictionary, and if it sees a word that it doesn’t recognize it will underline it in
red when you’re entering text. However, this red underline will not appear when you’re
giving the presentation. Although PowerPoint has a large dictionary it is an
all-purpose dictionary, so many technical terms will not be in it. Therefore, a red
underline does not always mean that something is wrong – just that PowerPoint can’t
recognize it. Any time you see a red underline, you should examine it carefully to
make sure it’s what you meant to say.</p>

<h2>Grammar Errors</h2>

<p>PowerPoint has some intelligence in understanding what you wrote. When it sees
something that is spelled correctly, but may not be good grammar, it will underline
the text in green. Since presentations usually use phrases, this grammar check is
usually pretty coarse, but it is still helpful. For example, you might have an item
where you’ve mixed a plural subject with a singular verb (e.g., “We was surprised�?).
Each word in the phrase is spelled correctly, but the phrase has improper grammar.
PowerPoint will underline the phrase in green so that you’ll see the mistake. As before,
sometimes PowerPoint will mark something in green that is, in fact, what you want.</p>

<p>In any case, you should always look at things that are underlined in green to
insure that you really meant what is said.</p>

<h2>Subtle errors</h2>

<p>Sometimes you can make a mistake that PowerPoint will not be able to see, but will
still hurt your image. For example, consider the shaft in a car that connects two wheels
together. This is called an axle (note the spelling). In ice skating, the only jump
where the skater takes off in a forward direction is called an axel (note the spelling),
named after the person who did the jump successfully the first time. Both words are
pronounced the same way, are valid words, and look almost identical, but mean totally
different things. PowerPoint accepts either word. If you’re presenting material about a
vehicle, it would be very easy to use the wrong word, and PowerPoint will not tell you
there’s a problem.</p>

<p>Your only defense here is to review your presentation carefully, and not just trust
PowerPoint to catch any errors. You should also have the entire team review the entire
presentation looking for errors. Usually an error like this that would escape the notice
by one person will be caught by somebody else on the team, saving your embarrassment.</p>

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