I hate powerpoint slides

I am taking a break in my study session to write about powerpoint slides as they are used by lecturers. Actually, it is such a general phenomenon that powerpoint is more the name of one of the most popular product to produce those atrocities than the only one to do so. Since this is a general post for ranting, even if I try to rationalize what is going on, I will focus on how much I hate them. It seems that most of them are produced as a combination of cue cards for the lecturer and of visual entertainment for the childish students. It means that, although they can be effective at entertaining those with short attention span (and I mention that I am of those with a short attention span but not of those who are entertained) they are quite ineffective as basic material for any lectures. This is caused by their cue card structure. Those cards are used to give directions for a speaker and they need not contain complete sentences since the material should be in the speaker's head. As a consequence, bad English, ambiguous statements and inaccurate vocabulary plague them and it would be alright if the cue cards were to be either discarded after use or kept privately for future repetitions of the lecture by the same person. I don't know if it is possible to design proper slide to act both as visual aid and supporting material for a course but, as I am about to start an academic career, I am completely opposed to their use in my lectures. I would rather use a combination of reading assignments and blackboard presentation with some possible rare exception. That being said, I can now resume my study of the most empty (in academic content) course in my school experience. Best regards, Simon Hudon ETH Zürich July 28th 2010 Post Scriptum: I am still studying for the same exam and I realize that the slides are really full of motherhood statements [1] like "Repeat the experiments until you get a reasonable standard deviation". I'm not sure how usual this is though but I realize this is something that always annoys me when I see it anywhere. [1] "motherhood statements" is an expression I borrowed from Dijkstra, it designates a set of argumentative positions and advices to which it does not make sense to be opposed to. In the case of the analogy, if you don't qualify your statement, you cannot just say that you support motherhood because the opposite does not make sense. Meyer also calls them argumentative platitudes. end of post scriptum