Everyone has their own way of making lecture slides, but I consider them to be “works of authorship. Example of a different way of thinking: The speaker’s own side is the main subject of the lecture, and the slides are just a starting point for the talk. Some of these types of speakers are very good, so it must be the “style” of the speaker, not good or bad.

Example of considering a slide as a work of authorship

  • Background is white for easy printing by the person who gets the slides
  • No animation
  • Some information is appended in small print that is not intended to be read at the time of the presentation (e.g., links to source papers)
    • The equivalent of footnotes in a book

Why consider a slide as a work of authorship?

  • It was the largest lecture I have ever experienced and the audience was, I believe, around 900 people.
    • Audio transmission in a lecture would only get the information to a mere 1,000 people in my time commitment.
  • If you write a technical book, in most cases the first edition is 1,000 copies, and my book has a single digit more, but that’s not a lot for the time commitment involved in creating it.
  • On the other hand, the publication of lecture slides after the lecture can easily reach thousands of people.
  • The distribution of slides after the lecture scales very efficiently in propagating knowledge.

Due to the idea of thinking of slides as works of authorship.

  • Slides are the main part and the lecture is the secondary part.
  • It’s like “In commemoration of the release of the new slides, we will hold a commentary session by the author himself.
  • For example, if a typhoon hits and blows out a lecture event, I just feel like, “Oh, it’s too bad the commentary event was canceled.

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