Laser pointers, viewed as a bad idea

Professor Patrick Henry Winston ’65, SM ’67, PhD ’70

I was casting about for something new to put into my traditional IAP How to Speak talk when I remembered a talk I had seen recently. The speaker liked to point at his projections with a laser pointer. He was addicted to it.

A student pointed out to me that during extended stretches, all of us in the audience could have left, and the speaker wouldn't have known.

I don't like to look at the back of the speaker's head. It drives me nuts because I think projections ought to decorate a conversation between the speaker and the audience, and without eye contact, there is no conversation. I would throw away my laser pointer, except that I use it as a prop when I demonstrate why using a laser pointer is a bad idea. It think is better to point with words (the second equation) or stick arrows into your projections (the white arrow points at the culprit).