What does the evidence say about presenting evidence?

I ran across an article on the Evidence-Based Management site, where Andrew Abela reminds us to use evidence-based presentation design when communicating evidence. Included is an impressive bibliography of references on topics such as making persuasive arguments, and understanding how people absorb information. Abela offers ten tips - here are three I found particularly helpful:

4. Support your recommendations from multiple angles. Key tidbit: "The evidence here indicates that the more arguments and support you offer in favor of your recommendations, the more likely your audience will be persuaded. Perhaps surprisingly, you should also include arguments against your recommendations: this increases your credibility and protects you from counter-arguments." (I recently recapped similar research showing it's best to disclose both pros and cons.)

6. Explain why your recommendations will work. Interesting tidbit: "Experiments show that causal arguments (e.g. 'adding this new feature increases customer satisfaction because it provides a sense of control') are more persuasive than statistical evidence ('adding this feature increases customer satisfaction by 8%')."

9. Keep material together. Tidbit:"The evidence here is that—contrary to popular belief—breaking complex information down and presenting it in multiple simple pieces is actually less effective than presenting everything at once."

Extra credit! Kudos to the author for listing specific references to back up each of his guidelines.

Abela has developed an approach called Extreme Presentation -- on his site, he offers ten steps for designing a high-impact presentation.