I don't know how much is in the $7 pamphlet that's not in the
_Wired_ piece I just found via Google (how did we ever live
without it?):
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html
I looked because I know Tufte's work on _Envisioning
Information_; I gave it to my son, a graphic designer /
communication person a couple of years ago, and sneaked some
fairly extensive peeks before I wrapped it. Amazing, amazing
stuff. If Tufte thinks this about PPt I'm convinced (not that I
wasn't before).
But I think it's interesting that Jamie posted this to us
Chatelaines, because it seems to me that at the root of Tufte's
objections is a rhetorical one. It's not only about denuding
complex ideas of their richness; it's not only about abandoning
the connectives and subordinators that make discourse into
thinking; it's about your relation to your audience. PPt is
unremittingly monologic. The speaker's plan is the speaker's
plan, interrupt it at your peril. The _Wired_ piece concludes
with this: "PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and
projector. But rather than supplementing a presentation, it has
become a substitute for it. Such misuse ignores the most
important rule of speaking: Respect your audience." It's no
mistake that it's called POWER point, eh?
It's interesting to me that in our university's self-examination
about whether we want to put a campus-wide course management
system in place, one of the common questions is, would it
interfere with my power point presentations?
And when we installed a half-dozen smart classrooms, the big
complaint was that the computers didn't have Zip drives that let
people plug their power point presentations directly in (we, um,
"solved" that by installing CD drives and showing the faculty
how to burn the Zip contents onto a CD).
I think this is a language and learning problem. Right up
CASLL's alley.
-- Russ
St. Thomas University
http://www.StThomasU.ca/~hunt/
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