LET'S COMMUNICATE
Agriculture Communication Newsletter
March 2004, No. 99

CONTENTS

Write -- and Say -- the Right Word
10 Design Tips for PowerPoint
Getting What You Want from Search Engines

Write -- and Say -- the Right Word

This column usually focuses on writing correctly, but http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html lists the 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English.

Examples include:

* It's utmost, not upmost.

* There are three syllables, not four, in triathlon.

* If things are not going your way, do not lose your tact but take another tack.

* When something occurs again, it recurs, not reoccurs.

* Remember the first d in candidate so you don't say cannidate.

* And my favorite -- it's duct tape, not duck tape.

10 Design Tips for PowerPoint

- Simplify. Simple is always better. Keep visuals uncluttered with open space (white space) to allow easier reading and visual breaks. Visuals should support what you say, not say everything for you.

- Use templates. Choose an appropriate master style and use it consistently throughout your presentation. Using the same backgrounds, colors and fonts makes a unified presentation.

- Use high contrast for legibility. Highly saturated colors provide the most contrast and easiest reading. Use white or light type on dark colored backgrounds for slides and on-screen shows.

- Use the right font. San serif fonts, such as Arial and Helvetica, are easier to read than serif fonts, like Times. Many PowerPoint templates use serif fonts. Change them!

- Keep text large. Text should be 24 points or larger. If your text size has to be smaller to fit, go back and edit your visual. And remember, the larger the room you will be presenting in, the larger your text needs to be.

- Bulleted lists work well. Take out sentences and replace them with key words and phrases. Expand on these points in your verbal presentation.

- Add graphics. Using graphics makes information more appealing and easier to understand -- but make sure it's appropriate for your audience. Graphics include clip art, graphs, pie charts, maps, arrows, photos, etc. Try using a clip art graphic very large for more impact.

- Use the right graphic format. Windows metafiles (wmf) work best for logos, line drawings and illustrations, while jpg's work best for photographs. Keep your gif files for your Web pages; they are blurry and don't work well.

- Choose special effects wisely. Transitions and special effects are great when it's appropriate. Be careful not to overdo it.

- Test. Test your presentation on the equipment you will be using and adjust the colors as necessary.

For questions or help with designing for PowerPoints, contact John Grindahl at 231-7898 or Deb Tanner at 231-7891.

Getting What You Want from Search Engines

Do you search for something on the Web, but keep getting the wrong results? When typing in a query, use "math commands" to tell the browser what is most important or what you do not want.

Placing a + in front of a word tells the search engine you must have that word in the results.

A - in front of a word tells the search engine you do NOT want that word included in the search results.

Placing quotes " " around a phrase tells the search engine to search for that exact phrase.

Say we want to search for winter wheat diseases. We would use the keywords winter, wheat and diseases. Since we want to make sure all our searches are about wheat, so we could either place a + in front of wheat or place quotes around the whole phrase. If we don't, we could get Web sites about winter weather, the flu, etc.

We would phrase our search one of these ways:

winter +wheat diseases

"winter wheat diseases"

When using the quotes, be sure the phrase is exact. The search engine will only list exact matches.

Let's say this search gave information on spring wheat, though that probably wouldn't happen if we used the quotes. Since we are looking for winter wheat and not spring wheat, we need to tell the search engine that. To do this, use the - command.

Our search would look something like this:

winter +wheat diseases -spring

These three commands should help reduce your results to the most useful and manageable.

For more information and additional tips on searching, visit http://searchenginewatch.com

Jerry Ranum