I think that in dealing with Power Point it is good to try and avoid extremes. You neither want to make your presentation so bland that it causes you're audience to lose interest nor do you want so many aids to where it becomes distracting. Both of these situations make your decrease the effectiveness of you presentation. I think the articles provided different view points of what goes into making power points, both good and bad. As such it was helpful to see not only what can make an effective slide show but also what makes one ineffective.
1) Make sure that you're power points are not too wordy. A slide that is completely covered in text is distressing to the audience, and they will most likely lose interest.
2)Have a visual on your slides. It makes the presentation more stimulating as a whole.
3)Having graphs it a good way to present data.
4)Make sure that the background of you slide show matches and compliments the theme of your presentation. You don't want to have a presentation over Buddhist monks and a background of Tokyo city.
5) Having music and video clips during a presentation is a good craft. However, make sure that they are not too distracting. Otherwise you're argument will be weakened as a whole.