Slide checklist and presentation guidelines

Follow the checklist and guidelines below to get your message across to your audience and make sure your talk is accessible for everyone.

Slide checklist

✅ Font

  1. Use one or two fonts for body text. Sans-serif is clearest (e.g. Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet MS).
  2. Keep font size to 24 pts minimum for body text. Aim for 40.
  3. Avoid italics.
  4. For guiding elements (e.g. headings), use consistent styling across all slides.

✅ Colours

  1. Use a dark font colour on a light background or vice versa.
  2. Avoid red/green combinations to make slides accessible for people with colour-vision deficiencies.
  3. Keep the theme and colours consistent across all slides.

✅ Text length

  1. Add essential information only.
  2. Avoid walls of text.
  3. Give slides plenty of white space.
  4. Keep bullet points to six max per slide.
  5. Better still, make a separate slide for each bullet point!

✅ Visuals

  1. Add photos, icons, diagrams, graphs to illustrate your points.
  2. Use large, high-resolution images (preferably max one per slide).
  3. Avoid flashing animations.
  4. Make sure any animations can be paused.

✅ Crediting and confidentiality

  1. Credit visuals if they aren’t yours.
  2. Add sources if you quote others.
  3. Mark any slides you don’t want shared outside the room.

✅ Number of slides

  1. Don’t have too many slides. (Avoid information overload. Aim for a maximum of one slide per minute of talk.)
  2. Number them to help the audience refer back to them.
  3. Consider adding a couple of slides after your last slide, and show these only if there’s time.

✅ Branding

  1. Display the MET logo on the first or all slides.
  2. Use the hashtag #METMXX, where XX is the current year, e.g. METM24.

✅ Proofreading

  1. Get your slides proofread by a second pair of eyes.
  2. Send your slide deck to your session chair, who will run through this checklist.

Presentation guidelines

Skim through introductory slides

Get to the main content fast. Your session chair has already introduced you and the talk outline is in your abstract. Use the first minute to break the ice and establish rapport with your audience.

Set up each slide before showing it

Introduce your point or ask a rhetorical question and then show the slide that explains or answers it.

Treat your slides as props

Slides are a visual aid to support your presentation. Keep the focus on you, the presenter. Make eye contact with the audience, smile, enjoy yourself!
Don’t read or face your slides. Put this into practice when rehearsing.

Help yourself

Rehearse your talk with a timer on, so you don’t have to rush through your slides near the end. Leave time for questions. Add pauses as you speak; practise speaking loudly and clearly. Do test runs with friends.

Help others

  • Before the conference. Some attendees may benefit from seeing your slides in advance, so we recommend you finalize them a week or two early. Your session chair will also request your slides (in .pptx format) beforehand to run through this checklist and also ensure there is a backup copy on site.
  • During the conference. Let attendees know at the start of your talk if you will be sharing your slides afterwards so that they take fewer photos of your slides and focus on what you’re saying. If your slides contain sensitive information, mark them or tell attendees which slides are off limits.
  • After the conference. We will ask you to contribute a PDF of your slide deck (and handouts) for inclusion in the members-only METM archive. Consider removing sensitive information.

Last updated December 2024