Too much of text

We are often tempted to overstuff our PowerPoint slides with too much of text and long paragraphs. Don’t forget presentation is all about putting points on slides and narrating or elaborating them in detail verbally. Don’t suffocate your presentation with too much of text. No one is interested in reading long texts. So write in bullets or points. Elaborate those verbally. Make sure you leave blank space in your slides.

Too much of animation

Many presenters love to show off their technical skills by animating each line or graphic of the slides. Remember, simplicity always sells. Don’t let the whoosh sound of your presentation distract the audience. It’s highly annoying when repeated. Keep slides simple, minimalistic, and elegant. Don’t animate each and every text or header or graphic element in it. Too much of rotation, blinking, floating, swinging of elements worsen a good content. Don’t use those animated sounds which are highly disturbing.

Baseless data

Presenters often put factual data, without mentioning the source. It’s a strict ‘no no’. Never put facts and figures, graphs without mentioning its source. No data seems authentic and valid without the source mentioned. People may doubt credibility of your presentation.

Reading out from the slides

Often presenters are seen doing nothing, but simply reading out whatever is there on the PowerPoint slide. It not only bores the audience, but also doesn’t add any value to the entire presentation session. You can add substantial value to a presentation only when you give your valuable inputs besides reading out from the slides alone. It also shows presenter’s lack of confidence, public speaking fear and lack of knowledge.

Make sure you avoid these mistakes.

Running over pages after pages

Don’t make a CV running over pages after pages, unless you have 30 years of professional experience. Make sure your CV’s length doesn’t exceed more than two to three pages preferably. A long resume not only disinterests the interviewer, but he also doesn’t consider it that important to devote time on. So keep it crisp in length, yet all inclusive. You can’t miss out important details that your resume needs to convey to the interviewer. Rather than curtailing points to be included, curtail length of elaborative detail.

Avoid paragraphs

Write your resume in bullet points instead of writing in long paragraphs. No one likes to read textual detail in form of a paragraph. Bullets make eye movement easier and also details are easily conceived without much concentration and difficulty. Whether it’s your professional or educational details always write in points instead of paragraphs.

To difficult words

Don’t get tempted to put extremely difficult words in your resume. It’s always advised to use simple, commonly known and easy words in your resume. Too difficult words may confuse interviewer and also convey ambiguity. If you are not a writer and not opting for any writing job, adhere to simple vocabulary. Make sure your choice of words is simple, yet effective and powerful.

Wrong order

Often people write resume in wrong order of sequence. Last or current job experience or last educational pursuit should be on the top, followed by earlier experiences. Often people first write their first experience, followed by the latest ones. It confuses interviewer regarding present experience.

Don’t forget to include objectives

Start your resume with your objective. Don’t start a resume vaguely without any clear mention of what you wish to do in life and what you are looking forward to from the applied job.

Don’t desperately try to memorize

Don’t desperately try to remember things. It will just worsen the situation. Rather enjoy your reading. Read slowly, yet steadily. Don’t stress on the fact that you have to remember, just tell yourself that you should understand each point thoroughly. A stressed mind is more susceptible to forgetting.

Repeat

Don’t expect your brain to work like a genius that you read once and retain things. Repeat your reading, if not each sentence, but the main content. In first reading you may not always get the right meaning, you may also skip few important parts. So repeating will help you to get the right meaning and retain as well.

Underline important lines

Don’t forget to underline the important points. While you read, underline the points which are vital, require attention and need to be remembered. Underlining important points will not only help you to remember, but also to get back to the important points at any point of time effortlessly.

Make small points

While you read, it’s better to jot down points too. Writing always helps in memorizing things better. At the end of each chapter or paragraph you may jot down the main points in bullets. It will help you to remember content of the paragraphs or chapter as a whole. While revising your lesson, you can simply take a glance of then points jotted down. Such points will not only help you to memorize better but also to browse through the chapter at a glance.

In front of your eyes

If you actually want to remember some vital points for the purpose of examination and it’s little unmanageable for you, write the important points on a white board or stick on pads and keep them in front of your eyes. Place it above your study table or just in front of your bed, so that every time you pass you take a look of the points. This way even unknowingly you will remember the points.

Now, isn’t memorizing task so easy?

I am sure you’ve heard of de.li.cio.us. It redirects to delicious.com, but as a .us domain and social bookmarking site, I can’t help thinking that their creativity was first sparked from the lack of interesting domain names available. If you can take something short and to the point from your search on word navigator, your next step would be to check it’s availability. The following guidelines can speed up the process:

• Since there are 3,563 words that end in -us at the time of this posting, the easiest thing to do would be to copy and paste each list (by length) into a text document, which took me about 7 minutes. You probably won’t take as long, if you copy and paste only half of all the words.
• In the document, click Edit and Select All. Proceed to toggle the bullets off. Then use Ctrl+F and type us into the search box. Click on Find All. You will notice that the -us ending has been selected for all of the words. Now click on Replace All. Your document should no longer have any of the -us endings.
• If your document is 75 pages long, perhaps it would be best to weed out words before continuing. Or you can copy and paste the words in only chunks (maybe 30 words) at a time into this domain name regristration search (clicking on the us extension, while unselecting the com extension), so that your internet browser doesn’t freeze up during the process.

Of the first thirty words I submitted, 14 were available. Here is my example chunk with unavailable .us domain names crossed out:

fagaceo.us                          furacio.us
felonio.us                          furfuro.us
feracio.us                          garrulo.us
ferocio.us                          gingero.us
fervoro.us                          glaireo.us
filaceo.us                          glamoro.us
flavoro.us                          globulo.us
fractio.us                          gluteno.us
frivolo.us                          glutino.us
froufro.us                          granulo.us
fugacio.us                          gummato.us
fulgoro.us                          gumptio.us
fulguro.us                          hazardo.us
fulmino.us                          hilario.us

Honestly, if I were a business looking for an attractive and modern domain name, gumptio.us would be my first pick! If you don’t know, gumptious is an adjective that means enterprising (synonym to energetic, industrious, up-and-coming). Or how about furacio.us? Hurry up, domain names like these will soon fill up the Web 2.0 (or is it 3.0) scene! If you really don’t care what the domain name is and just want to set something up quickly, your best bet would be to submit one or two words into a domain name suggestion tool.