Good prompts are not clever, they are complete. Almost every prompt that works well contains the same five ingredients, and once you have them in mind you can build one in under a minute. You will not always need all five, but it is worth knowing which one you have left out.
Context: the situation and the reader
Who you are, what the business does, who will read this, and what has already happened. A line or two is usually enough. This is the part most people skip, and it is the part that does the most work.
Task: one clear instruction
Say plainly what you want done: draft, summarise, rewrite, extract, compare. Vague verbs like help me with produce vague results. If you have three things to do, ask for them as three numbered tasks or run them separately.
Format: the shape of the answer
Ask for a table with named columns, a numbered list, a short email with a subject line, or a paragraph of a given length. Without this you get whatever shape seems likely, which is often not the one you need.
Constraints: the rules and the limits
Length, tone, reading level, British English, no jargon, do not mention price, do not invent anything not in the source. Constraints are where you stop it doing the things you would otherwise have to undo by hand.
Examples: show what good looks like
One short sample of the style or structure you want communicates more than several sentences describing it. If you have a past email or quote that worked well, paste it in and say to follow that pattern.
Common mistakes
- Giving the task with no context about the reader or the situation.
- Bundling four different requests into one long sentence.
- Not saying what shape the answer should take, then reformatting it by hand.
- Describing the tone with adjectives when you could paste an example instead.
- Forgetting to specify British English and getting American spelling throughout.
- Leaving out limits like length or what to avoid, then trimming the output yourself.
Check yourself
0/41.You ask for a comparison of two suppliers and get four rambling paragraphs. Which ingredient was missing?
2.Which addition would most improve the prompt: Write a follow up email to a customer?
3.You keep having to correct American spelling in the output. What is the fix?
4.What is the quickest way to get output in your business's usual style?
This is general guidance, not a substitute for advice on your specific setup. Want a hand putting it into practice? Talk to us or see our care plans.