Wow. And I thought I hated PowerPoint! My dislike of PowerPoint as a presentation tool is nothing compared to Tufte’s. Although I felt he was a little too vitriolic at points, most of his arguments about PowerPoint’s failures, weaknesses, and flaws are dead on. Too many presenters rely on PowerPoint to give their representation rather than using PowerPoint to complement or enhance their presentation. Chartjunk and PowerPointPhluff are both very real dangers to any PowerPoint presentation and the examples Tufte uses highlight these dangers with a very real sense of humor. I particularly liked the Gettysburg Address as PowerPoint example.
As I read the article, I kept trying to figure out how I would use PowerPoint for a presentation later this semester. My research does not rely on images, but I think PowerPoint presentations are part of the tool of research requirement, so I need to think of something. Perhaps make a couple PowerPoint presentations for the class I’m teaching this summer? Regardless of the topic, the discussion at Tufte’s and the Presentation Zen websites have some great ideas about presentation styles, habits, etc. that I will certainly be returning to before my next presentation.
I didn’t have any particularly pressing questions from this reading, but I am curious to know how many people use/enjoy/appreciate/tolerate/despise PowerPoint and how they plan to deal with it and similar programs in the future? Also, if you have a primarily word-based presentation, but must use PowerPoint, how would you reconcile the “dumbing down” effect of PowerPoint with your presentation needs? I think I would use PowerPoint to give my audience an outline of my presentation — while providing a more substantice paper handout. But, I may very well find a picture of Nixon doing the chicken dance when I go to the Archives on Wednesday, so maybe I will have pictures for my presentation. Of course, I could always weave images (of people, places, documents) and sounds (from the Nixon tapes) into my presentation.
This seemed rather timely given our discussion on the 14th. So, enjoy!
Voices In Man’s Head Make Great Point About Time Management
February 20, 2006 | Issue 42•08
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The Getting Started chapter of Digital History pointed me to a number of things that I hadn’t seriously considered when thinking about my final project. I know I want to do a timeline with layers of information, but I still don’t know how I’m going to do that.
Based on the Thinking about Your Website’s Genres and Features section, it seems I’m on the right track since I’m still focused on content and what I want the site to accomplish. I can definitely see how technology can become a distraction when creating websites. Is everyone else starting with the content for their site and then seeking out the technology that will make the site work? Or is anyone (with far more technological knowledge than I) thinking about the technology first? I can see the advantages of spending at least a few hours thinking and learning about technology before planning the conceptual side of a website. If I know that databases take too long to program or are simply more complicated than I can manage on my own, I know to plan a site that doesn’t rely on a database — or, I know to find someone to help me before I get too caught up in my project. However, the authors’ view that historians should be the archetechs of websites rather than the plumbers is very important. After all, I know I can find someone who understands the technology if I decide that the only way to make my site work is through a database.
I also appreciated the parallels between the process of researching/writing history and designing websites. Presenting a website as another form of publishing helped shake me out of the mindset that I must do all of the work on my website myself. Granted, I will probably do most of the work on this website myself (since it’s basically a paper ), but in the future when I want to construct a website more on the scale of a book, I will quickly turn to the experts. After all, I certainly wouldn’t invest in printing equipment to publish my books, so why should I obsess over production details for my website?
Naming Your Site and Presenting it to the World again speaks to the question of credibility. Even though private websites can have perfectly valid and useful information, I still tend to trust .org and .edu websites more than .com sites. Ignoring my biases, how important do you see the domain of a website in establishing credibility? Of course, the authors and sources of any pages/sites should be clear, but if they are is there any quanlitative difference between domains? I don’t think so, but at the same time, perceptions are central to evaluation. After all, if every book published by Harvard University Press had advertisements at the top and bottom of the page (as do many websites), I would probably start to view that press differently. Thoughts?
I copied a story from the Washington Post with my digital camera as a test run to see if I can really count on the camera when I do research in the archives. I used a Nikon E 3200 and it’s a bit blurry since I don’t own a tripod yet.
The authors of The Character, Value, and Management of Personal Paper Archives ask “what makes paper information valuable?” After the readings for this week, my gut reaction of “Because it’s paper” is a bit more sophisticated. Instead of being valuable in its own right, paper is a proven storage medium and will show changes. The Personal Paper Archives article was particularly appropriate reading this weekend as I attempted to sort through piles of paper (including many duplicate articles) and figure out a filing system for the chaos. In the terms of the article, I am a hybrid piler-filer — which I think means I am doomed to have a desk covered with half-way sorted piles for the rest of my life. Additionally, Case’s observations about the filing practices of historians were dead-on for my filing system. Did anyone else find the authors (sometimes obtuse) comments about filing systems and unread files relevant? At a bare minimum, it was comforting to read that my filing habits are pretty “normal” for the most part. (Or, I would be if my cat didn’t eat paper.)
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So, was anyone else really tempted to try a caffeine nap?
The Digital History chapter, “Becoming Digital,” offers a concise and (mostly) user-friendly discussion of the issues of digitization. I must admit I skimmed the more technical sections, but it’s good to know where I can find a basic overview if I should need it in the future.
The discussions of potential methodological shifts resulting from metadata, tagging, and most simply computer-readable text were particularly interesting to me. I’m fascinated by language and linguistic patters and keyword searches could simplify my research. Since my previous work quantitatively analyzed rhetorical and voting patterns, I had to physically read and track keywords in the Congressional Record, the Public Papers of the President, and major newspapers. Midway through an early version of this project, I tried using digital search engines, but found that they rarely turned up articles and quotes that I knew existed. Consequently, I still don’t trust keyword searches for my research.
However, I will be the first to admit that such searches are excellent exploratory tools. If nothing results from a particular keyword search, it is unlikely that the search engine missed a treasure trove of information. However, the chapter’s discussion of metadata pros and cons, while intriguing, gave me even more reasons not to trust keyword searches for my work. But, better understanding of the process has helped me to understand why and how keyword searches did not work for my earlier work and how they may work in future projects.
So, I’m curious. How much do you trust keyword searches? When do you use them in your research? If you’re interested in creating a digital archive, which metadata option(s) do you think will best fit your project. As a linguistically-inclined historian, I’d love to have both fully searchable typed texts AND page scans with exhaustiive keywords. But, I knew that’s too much to expect of small projects with limited resources. I’m still not sure what trade-off I’d make in their shoes.
