Academic habits: slide rules

Self-tutoring about academic rules-of-thumb: the tutor mentions slide rules.

I’m not old enough (believe it or not) to have used a slide rule. However, I have been taught some slide rules. By this I mean rules about making good slides for a slide presentation (such as with PowerPoint).

One rule about making a good slide, supposedly, is that there shouldn’t be much text on it – perhaps a maximum of three or four lines. Most people seem to know this rule, but most people seem to break it. Often, they roll out a slide with several paragraphs of text, apologizing.