Visual aids are encountered in many criminal justice presentations, reports, and other printed and online resources. As a criminal justice professional, useful visual aids in your presentations may help you to reach your objectives by providing emphasis on important points. Clear pictures and graphs can enhance the audience's level of understanding of the material presented.

Conversely, poor visuals might be counterproductive by adding confusion—instead of clarification—to the resource. The assigned readings for the week cover a number of tips for creating effective visual aids and graphs.

For this assignment, reflect on the various types of visual aids that can be used to help convey complex information in a way that increases comprehension by the audience. Also, consider key ways to create effective visual aids. Select any two resources (e.g., books, journal articles and/or websites) that depict criminal justice data with visual aids.

With these thoughts in mind:

Provide a brief description of the resources you selected and the information and type of visual aid presented in the resources. Then explain whether the visual aids were effective or ineffective in communicating the information and why.

Be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the Learning Resources below.

Readings

• Holzl, J. (1997). Twelve tips for effective PowerPoint presentations for the technologically challenged. Medical Teacher, 19(3), 175–179.
• Piltch, C., & Terry, K.J. (2011). Visual aids in oral and written presentations. In A short guide to writing about criminal justice (113–126). Upper Saddle: River Prentice Hall.
  Piltch, Charles; Terry, Karen J., Short Guide to Writing About Criminal Justice, A, 1st Edition, (C) 2011. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ.

• Krieger, S. (2011). 12 tips for creating better PowerPoint presentations. Microsoft at Work. Retrieved from http://www.microsoft.com/business/en-nz/Content/Pages/article.aspx?cbcid=64