PowerPoint Tyranny -- Dickeson

It's strange, but the PowerPoint outline style—linear reasoning format—makes no sense at all to the Japanese or other Asian peoples. In the Orient, supporting points loop around the main point without creating a linear argument, leaving the reader open to inference. Does this tell us something?

It's true, as Tufte and others point out, that we read printed materials much faster than we speak them. As a result, members of an audience will grasp written words on a PowerPoint screen at a much greater speed than a speaker can say them aloud. This explains why many bullet point presentations must delay revealing those points, waiting for the speaker to catch up, or trying to get ahead, of the group.