PART FOUR LOGIC IN PRESENTATION

Once you have worked out the logic of your pyramid and are ready to communicate the ideas, you want to be sure to arrange them so that the reader can visually grasp the various divisions of thought that make up the hierarchy of your pyramid. This is true whether you choose to present the ideas in written prose on a page or in bullets and graphics on a screen.

It used to be, of course, that all business documents were presented as written prose in memorandum or report form. But as printing and graphics technology developed, the concept of the "visual presentation" was born. Originally; this took the form of transparencies on overhead projectors, or the somewhat more elegant 35 nun slides controlled by a remote button and revealed on one or more screens. Today you can make your own slides by computer, or even project full-motion video graphics in living color.

The presentation form you choose will depend on the length of the message and the number of people for whom it is intended.

- If the message is short and intended for one or a few people, the likelihood is that you will present it as written prose in memorandum or report form, and send it directly to the recipients to read by themselves.

- If the message is short and meant for many people, you may want to present the ideas in the form of a "dot-dash memo" or "lap visual to be discussed sitting around a table.

- If the message is long and meant for a large number of people, you are likely to put it in slide form and present the slides using either an overhead projector or a computer to show the images.

Regardless of form, you need to make sure that you display the ideas on the page or screen in a way that visually reinforces the logic of the pyramided ideas and their relationships to each other. The reader's or viewer's eye always sees the logic before his mind comprehends it. Thus you want to use what the eye sees to reinforce what the mind receives.

The techniques for making the logic visually clear differ depending on whether the reader will read the ideas alone from the printed page or in company with others from a screen while listening to an ongoing commentary. And you will not be surprised to learn that, in either case, there are rules you need to follow in applying the techniques. Accordingly, we will talk about the rules for making sure the ideas are visually clear to the reader in both prose form and presentation form. It will end with a few hints for making sure that the sentences in which you communicate your ideas, whether orally or in writing, convey their meaning as clearly as possible to your reader or listener.