What does not belong here (whole paragraphs)

If it looks like an essay, it does not belong on the wall.

You already know a slide is not a notebook. Today you catch up with a ban that hurts.

Whole paragraphs do not belong here. Not even “just on one slide, it is important”. Important belongs in the mouth or in the notes.

On the wall belong a sentence, a short bullet, a number, a picture. A paragraph is Word. Word has its own lessons.

When you fill the wall and the ears with the same text, the ears lose, because the eyes read ahead.

Example: a paragraph about the Hussites type 20 fits and cannot be read. Three bullets of five words and the paragraph in notes — you say the same with your mouth and the back row can see it.

Today you take a paragraph you love and change its form. Ctrl+X on the area, Ctrl+V into notes. A sentence stays on the wall. You do not kill the idea. You kill mush on the projector. More than two lines in a row is already suspicious.

Tereza pasted a paragraph about the Hussites from the textbook, because “everything is in there”. Type 20, so it would fit. It fitted. It could not be read.

Jonáš had three bullets of five words and the paragraph in notes. He said the same thing richer with his mouth.

Tereza read. The teacher watched who speaks and who recites. Reciting is not a presentation. It is reading aloud with a backdrop. Today you move Tereza’s paragraph. The facts do not vanish. They hide down and into the speech.

💡

More than two lines of continuous text under the title? It already smells like a paragraph. Shorten, split onto two slides, or down into notes.

A paragraph has a place: Word, notebook, notes

A paragraph is continuous text of several sentences. On a slide it makes a grey slab. The slab eats contrast, type and time.

Where to put it: notebook and textbook. The Notes field. An essay in Word, when the task is an essay.

On the slide area after shortening: one sentence in the title, then short words. No four-comma compound sentence on the wall.

Copying from the web brings paragraphs and small type. Always clear the format and shorten. The teacher will know Wikipedia on the wall. They will also know you did not carry it with your mouth.

The ban is not aesthetics. It is honesty: you say it, not the wall. The wall only anchors. An anchor should not be a novel.

Text from the textbook: a long paragraph about bees pollinating, carrying pollen, making honey, living in a hive.

Tereza puts it all on a slide. Jonáš: title “Without bees there are fewer apples”, bullet “pollen”, bullet “don’t fear the hive”. Paragraph in notes. The speech adds honey.

The teacher asks about apples. Jonáš has the sentence on the wall. Tereza hunts a line in the paragraph. Time runs. That is the tax of a paragraph. You pay it at the board.

Having it on a slide is not the same as having it visible on the wall.

⚠️

Do not try to save a paragraph with a narrow column like in a newspaper. A narrow column on a slide is still a paragraph. It is still read, instead of being listened to.

Four things you will build in this course

The course has four small projects. You do not have to do them all at once. Today you add only this:

🎯 A hobby in 5 slides

Five slides about something you like doing. One sentence about what it is. No paragraphs from your notebook.

Hobby: not a diary in paragraphs. Five anchors.

📚 A report

Eight slides for school: a start, three proofs, an end. The title on every slide is a sentence, not “Slide 3”.

Report: the textbook does not belong copied onto eight slides.

📊 Survey results

A chart from a table (not a screenshot from chat) and under it where the numbers come from.

Survey: a comment on the chart one sentence, not an essay.

⚖️ A defence

You say one sentence, show proof, answer “and what if…”. If you do not know, you say I don’t know.

Defence: the sentence about what it is is not a paragraph. It is one sentence.

Kill the paragraph, not the idea

You paste a paragraph on purpose, then you take it apart. After, it must be readable from the back in a second.

On a practice slide paste three to four sentences from your notebook. Leave the format as it is, so it hurts. Step back. This is the state this lesson bans.
Select the paragraph, Ctrl+X, paste into Notes under the slide. On the area write one sentence from it into the title. Under it at most three words, not sentences. Size 40 and 28, contrast from last time. Clear web formatting if it stayed.
If you cannot do without a third sentence, Slide → New slide and put a second anchor there. Do not leave the third sentence on the first screen as “it still fits”. It fits. It should not.
Present (F5). Read only the wall. Then Esc and read the notes quietly. They are two layers. If you read on the wall the same as in the notes, shorten the wall more. In PowerPoint almost the same: cut into notes.
Go through the other slides on the left. Where you see continuous text longer than two lines, repeat the move. End: no essay on the area. A billboard at the top.

Hunting paragraphs

A paragraph hides as “an explanation”. An explanation belongs in the mouth.

Find the longest box in the presentation and shorten it to a sentence plus three words.
Say the paragraph from the notes out loud without looking at the wall.
Ban yourself from copying from Wikipedia straight onto a slide. Only a note on paper, then an anchor.

Now you 💪

On the slide areas there is no continuous paragraph of several sentences.
The notes hold what I wanted to read.
If there were more facts, a slide was added, not smaller paragraph type.

✅

Done when: On the wall there are anchors. Paragraphs are in notes or in the notebook.

What to take from this lesson

A paragraph = Word, notebook or notes. Not the wall.
Two lines in a row are already suspicious.
Facts do not vanish when the paragraph vanishes. They hide in the speech.
Copying from the web brings paragraphs. Clear and shorten.
Reciting an essay is not a presentation.
Names in the examples (Tereza, Jonáš) are made up. Do not put your number, email or photo on a slide.