Identify and discuss guidelines for creating effective handouts

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: First, consider the needs of your audience. Will they want to make notes on your handouts? If so, avoid slide miniatures that fill the entire page with no room for notes. Be sure to leave ample margins or provide other blank space. Next, consider the impact of color. Your audience may perceive handouts printed in color as more impactful than black-and-white documents. However, colorful handouts are more ex-pensive to produce. Printing handouts in grayscale provides contrast without additional expense. Third, proofread carefully before copying. You can easily make changes to your electronic files before your presentation. However, if you find an error after you copy your handouts, printing and recopying them will require extra time and money. Also, make extra copies. Even if you think you know how large your audience will be, make 10 percent more handouts in case extra people attend or someone wants to share copies with col-leagues who cannot attend your presentation. Finally, decide when to distribute your handouts. In some situations, you may want to distribute your handouts as your audience enters the room. They can preview the topic and begin to think about your information before the presentation begins. In other cases, you may want to distribute the handouts as you begin speaking. Having handouts during the presentation al-lows the audience to make notes and identify question areas as they follow along. If you do not want your audience to read a handout while you are presenting, you may decide to provide handouts only at the end of the presentation as a take-away.