He spread out the poster. The poster had creases across the information. The information was printed on paper badly glued to the poster. The papers were falling off.
He was proud of it. He had never given a presentation before. He didn't know what it meant to "look professional."
It's simple. It means, you worked hard on this thing -- now show it off! Kids are surprised to learn it takes maybe five minutes longer to "look good" than to look careless.
1. No spaghetti sauce, please.
Papers and projects should be neat and clean. Keep them away from Spot, little brothers and sisters, and the dinner table. Transport them to school carefully. Respect your own hard work!
2. Keep it simple.
Don't go crazy with font styles and pictures. Unless the teacher asks for more, use one or two simple font styles (like Times New Roman).
3. Listen to your "small voice."
If a little voice in the back of your head says, "This isn't that good, but maybe the teacher won't notice." Listen to the first part and fix it! She'll notice.
4. We don't have telescopes.
If you are making a visual aid for an oral presentation, make it big enough to see. Never hold up an 8x10 sheet of paper. Pasting an 8x10 sheet of paper on a giant poster does not make the paper bigger. Duh!
5. Don't save time and lose points.
Use a ruler when you make a graph for a poster. Use stencils or the computer to make large titles. Draw pencil lines upon which to write to keep text even, then erase them. Glue stick around the entire border of what you intend to glue down. The extra five minutes spent will please the audience and your grade!
6. Paper bags are for lunches.
Mr. M once turned in his homework written on a lunch bag. Hmmm! A better choice is a nice, white sheet of notebook paper -- one without ragged edges. If you want tear-out paper, buy the notebooks with perforated edges. Don't use pink or purple. Don't doodle in the right hand corner. Don't cross out or scribble in corrections, or otherwise disrespect the grader! A mini-stapler is cheap. Hand in stapled or paper clipped papers.