Speaker’s Notes are your secret weapon, so keep them hidden.

The one-trick trainers who impose 5x5 training wheels also tend to insist students write a term paper inside the Speaker's Notes. This misses the point of the feature:

• Speaker's Notes are notes for the speaker, not the audience.

Use the Speaker's Notes for scripts, research, cues, or excess narration moved from slides. Notes are your private cheat sheet—rich with context, kept in Presenter View, and never shared with the audience while in Slide Show view. Slide Show view is the performance; it's all the audience should see, so get the message on the slide. The Speaker's Note, Presenter's, and Normal views are backstage; it's the process of constructing your presentation and storing your ideas. Don't let the audience see behind the curtain. Exposing them risks undermining your credibility with an unprofessional presentation.