Guidelines for Bulleted Slides

Avoid crunching.  Leave wide margins and plenty of blank space.

Position the title.  Place the title on the top one-sixth of the transparency.

Capitalize the title.  Begin each word in the title with a capital letter.

Don’t repeat.  If the same word is repeated in all bulleted items, make it a part of the title or the subtitle

Use sans-serif font.  Use a san-serif font (example:  Arial or Helvetica).

Avoid ransom notes.  Do not use too many different fonts.  Stick to a single font.

Don’t shout.  Avoid typing any title, item, or word in ALL CAPS.

Be consistent.  Use the same font and same bullet symbol throughout.

Shrink the bullet.  Make sure that the size of the bullet is the same as the font size (or slightly smaller).

Use numbers.  Replace bullets with numbers if you want to emphasize the sequence or compare different items with each other.

Use few words.  Use tight phrases instead of complete sentences.

Don’t exceed six.  Make sure that the bulleting list does not contain more than six items.  Make sure that no item has more than six words.

Don’t exceed two.  Do not use more than two levels of bullets.

Keep items parallel.  Make sure that all items in the list have the same structure.  (For example, they all begin with a verb.)

Wrap words.  Make sure no bullet item exceeds two lines.  Use a hanging indent style for the second line.

Omit periods.  Do not put a period at the end of the items on the list.

Prevent motion sickness.  Don’t use unnecessary animation (for example: flying bullets and building the slide one item at a time)

Used with permission: From http://www/thiagi.com/pfp/IE4H/june2002.html#Handout1