Imagine: your family has gathered around the table for a nice meal. Everyone is home, there's only a little fighting (let's be realistic!) and there's a delicious meal spread out on the table, including the pièce de résistance, a perfectly cooked turkey... or tofurkey, or salmon, or chicken, or spiral ham, depending on how you roll. Don't ruin the meal by using the wrong knife to cut the main course and destroying the delicacy of that tofurkey. A carving knife will serve all your meat carving needs.
The Right Tool
Having the right tool for the job is essential in cooking, or in this case, presentation. You want a carving knife when you're dealing with meat, as they're made for dealing with the relatively tough fibers present in even tenderly cooked meat. Depending on the meat dish, you'll be cutting with or against the grain of the meat, and you'll need a sharp, smooth edge: a serrated knife will only end in a hacked up mess. While you can use similarly smooth knives, like paring knives (which are a bit on the small side) or chef's knives to get the job done, carving knives offer thinner, more precise cuts. And that means a lot, especially if you've got a family of picky eaters who hate dark meat or gristle, or if you're the type to turn left-overs into sandwiches.
Handling
When working with any knife, comfort is key. If you feel the knife blade is too big or you can't grip the handle well, you aren't going to have an easy time working with that knife. Most carving knives fall between eight to fifteen inches, so there's plenty of range to suit your requirements and the meat's requirements as well. When dealing with dry meats, use a more flexible carving knife: otherwise, a rigid knife is needed to prevent slippage while cutting. To grip the knife properly, hold it around it's bolster, rather than its handle for extra precision, and try to cut in singular, long strokes.