At iSpeak, Master Instructor Bill Kreiger often reminds presenters that “visuals should be used to enhance an audience's understanding of a concept, not used as cue cards.” Your slides are a visual aid—not a script. When you read from slides, you turn your back on the audience, lose eye contact, and signal that you're not prepared. The fix starts with how you build your slides in the first place.

Apply the Six By Six Rule: no more than six lines of six words per slide (36 words maximum). Better yet, replace text-heavy bullets with a single compelling image. If your slide needs a lot of words to make sense, it belongs in a handout — not on the screen.

Why it matters:

People attend presentations for insight, perspective, and interaction—not to read text they could read themselves.

• It hurts your credibility. When you read from your slides, the audience draws quick conclusions: "They don't know the material." "They're dependent on their slides." "They're talking to the screen, not to us."
• Simple slides keep eyes on you. A slide should reveal its message almost instantly, so the audience can focus on you—not on deciphering the screen or waiting for you to read it aloud.
• If you're just going to read it, why are we here? That's the question running through your audience's mind. If they can get the same information by requesting the deck afterward, you've just told them their attention right now isn't necessary. Don't be surprised when they check email instead of watching you.