Six slides in, and I watched my client’s eyes drift straight to their phone. The deck was clean, accurate, and totally forgettable, because it was just my source doc chopped into rectangles. 🧭
That’s the exact trap a Redditor going by u/Cautious_Chain_5977 called out in r/PromptEngineering this week, and the fix is almost embarrassingly simple. This original poster used to jump straight from a document to slides too. The decks always felt like the doc got shredded and taped back together. So they added one step in between: a prompt that builds a message map before a single slide gets touched.
Why It Matters 🧩
Here’s the thing about asking a model for slides directly. It optimizes for slide-shaped chunks, not for an actual argument. You get bullet points that look organized but don’t add up to anything anyone will remember five minutes later. The audience can feel it, even if they can’t name what’s missing.
A message map fixes that by forcing the thinking to happen before the formatting. You get one governing message the audience should walk out repeating. You also get a handful of supporting messages that prop it up, plus the evidence behind each one. Once that spine exists, everything you build on top of it actually hangs together. Nothing just sits next to each other like strangers on a bus.
The author’s own line nails it: separating the thinking step from the formatting step is the whole point. Skip it, and you’re just laminating your document. Do it first, and your deck has a reason to exist beyond looking like a deck.
This matters way past presentations, too. The same trick applies any time you want a finished, formatted thing out of a model. Landing pages, scripts, sales emails, it doesn’t matter. Make it argue its case first, then let it format.
The Prompt 🗺️
This is reproduced exactly as the original poster wrote it, so copy it straight into your tool of choice.
Do not make slides yet. First build a message map for a presentation based on the material below.
Return:
- The governing message: the one sentence the audience should be able to repeat afterward.
- 3 to 5 supporting messages: each is a claim that props up the governing message.
- Under each supporting message, the specific evidence or example from the material that proves it.
- The logical order these should be delivered in, and one line on why that order.
Rules:
- Every supporting message must actually support the governing one. If it doesn’t, cut it or fix the governing message.
- Use only what’s in the material. Flag anywhere the argument has a gap with no evidence.
Material:
[paste here]
Notice what’s doing the heavy lifting here. The “governing message” line forces a single repeatable sentence instead of a vague vibe about the topic. The “flag gaps” rule is the sneaky-smart part. It makes the model admit where your argument has no proof. You’d much rather learn that now than during Q&A, with someone’s hand already up.
The ordering step matters too. Most people build slides in the order the source document happens to list things, which is rarely the order that actually persuades anyone.
Tips & Tricks 💡
- Run this on the raw material first. Resist the urge to summarize it yourself before pasting it in, and let the model find the spine on its own.
- If a supporting message shows up with no evidence attached, don’t force it in. Either find the proof or cut the claim, since the model already told you it’s weak.
- One commenter, u/-DirtNerd-, suggested keeping this step short enough that you’ll actually use it every time. Even a quick outline of audience, goal, and flow beats skipping the step entirely. A five-line version you use every time beats a perfect version you skip when you’re rushed.
- Another Redditor, u/Embarrassed_Hope8523, pointed out that seeing the structure laid bare makes weak spots obvious immediately. That’s the kind of thing slide formatting usually hides until it’s too late.
- Save the message map output somewhere before you build slides. It’s a great gut check for keynotes, sales decks, even a long email you want someone to actually act on.
- Paste the finished map back in as context when you finally do ask for slides. The model now has a spine to build around instead of a pile of loose facts.
Steal This Step 🚀
Next time you catch yourself pasting a doc straight into a slide generator, stop and run the message map first. It costs you two minutes and saves you from presenting a deck that’s technically correct and completely unmemorable! Head over to the original thread in r/PromptEngineering to see how the rest of the comments are using it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How does this help you catch weak arguments before presenting?
Laying out the bare structure (governing message + supporting claims + evidence) without slide software makes gaps obvious. The prompt specifically asks you to flag anywhere your material has no proof, which beats discovering that during Q&A.
Q: Isn’t this adding extra work? Can I condense the prompt?
The payoff is separating thinking from formatting. You could streamline it to just: audience, goal, one governing message, 3-5 supporting points with proof, and order. Even that quick version prevents wasted slide generations.
Q: What’s the difference between a message map and a regular outline?
A message map starts with one claim (the thing your audience should remember) and every supporting point must actively defend it. A regular outline is a loose collection of related ideas; a message map forces structural coherence by cutting points that don’t directly support the main claim.
Q: How do you know if your supporting messages actually support the governing message?
Ask yourself: does this supporting point directly prove or strengthen the main claim? If the answer is ‘kind of’ or ‘tangentially,’ cut it or revise both the supporting message and governing message to make them clearer. The rule is strict for a reason: if it doesn’t actively support, it weakens the whole argument.
The step most people skip before making slides: a prompt that builds a message map first
by u/Cautious_Chain_5977 in PromptEngineering