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Presentation writing can be a whole other beast. However, it really needs to be written properly and that’s what you need to focus your attention to. You may be good at regular writing, but if you take the same approach with your presentations, you’re just inviting disaster. Here are a few tips to make sure the presentations you write put you on top:

1. Learn to write super short and succinct for your slides. No need for full sentences if short phrases are clear enough. Elaborations are often best spoken, instead of forced to fit in your presentation materials.

2. Write consistently throughout your slides. If you write in short sentences, write that way throughout the rest of the presentation materials. It helps the audience when they know what to expect in the coming slides.

3. Write humor down before using. Improvising humor during presentations often turns up bad results.

4. Any part of the presentation you recite should complement information on the slides. Avoid surprising people with new, vital facts.

5. Don’t think in terms of word count. Think, instead, in terms of length. Since this is harder to get precisely, make sure you practice your speech and time it.

6. Give people time to think, just as you give them space to pause in written work.

7. Use a comprehensive writing software for your presentation materials. Sure, a large part of your grade will hinge on how you perform in front of the audience. Badly proofread materials, however, can cost you some points off. Make sure that doesn’t happen.

Sometimes, they seem like relics of an earlier age, but flip charts still have their uses. Especially if we recognize that we can do more than simply write on them.

If you’re preparing a presentation, spend a little time preparing your flip chart sheets ahead of time. Don’t use the one on site; take your own instead. Here’s why:

First, you can write out the points for your presentation in pencil, in small letters, on the pages of the flip chart. This means you don’t need to take separate notes with you. And, it will look like you’re working without notes.

At the top of each page, write notes to yourself in pencil, just big enough for you to see them from a couple of feet away. Since your nearest audience member is likely to be at least 10 feet away, they won’t see what you see.

Alternatively, you can write very lightly in pencil what you plan to write in large letters for your audience. In other words, trace out your words ahead of time, in their final size, and use those words as your ticklers or speech notes.

Then as you’re working through that section, you can refer to your notes each time you write something on the flip chart. Much more effective than consulting separate notes on a lectern or elsewhere.

You can also draw lines on the page, or use sheets that come with preprinted gridlines to ensure you get everything on the sheet. When I use flip charts without preparation or planning, I often run out of space on the sheet, and end up putting just a couple of words on a succeeding sheet. That means the notes aren’t as coherent as they might be.

Finally, at the bottom of each page, write (again, in pencil and in small letters) a question for the audience that leads into the idea you’ll capture on the next sheet.

And when you finish with the idea on that sheet, you’ll ask a question like, “So, how do we implement this new process?” That gives the audience something to consider (and a transition) while you turn away to flip the sheet over and read the notes for that page.

The flip chart may be very old technology, but it can still be a very good friend when making presentations. Just think: no wires to connect, no devices to fail, no batteries to remember. The flip chart can also be a reassuring friend.

Sometimes an old medium offers some benefits you can’t get with newer and more advanced media.