There is no real magic to writing prompts, but there are strategies for ‘prompting‘ that seem to help the AI model return more useful results. Prompt engineering involves creating and refining inputs to help genAI tools provide quality responses. Since genAI cannot think for itself, prompts play an important role in ensuring that responses are meaningful and align with intended goals.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF PROMPT WRITING

You need to create effective prompts to harness the power of AI. Think of prompts as the questions or commands we give to AI. The better our prompts, the more accurate and useful the AI’s responses will be. Remember that clear, precise questions lead to clear, concise answers.

KEY ELEMENTS OF AN EFFECTIVE PROMPT

Let’s go over some key elements of effective prompt writing, though note that you do not need to use all of these elements in every prompt. Use the elements that you feel will provide you with the best results.

• Purpose – What do you want the AI to do? What is the goal of the prompt? Is it to generate ideas, encourage creative thinking, or guide research? Your purpose will shape the prompt’s directions.

• Context – Include the background information or setting and audience that will help the AI understand and generate appropriate responses.

• Constraints – This includes any limitations or conditions that guide the AI’s response and sets boundaries within which the AI must operate. Without these parameters an AI might provide an overly broad or irrelevant information.

• Tone – If you’d like your response written in a certain tone of voice, you can specify this in your prompt. Such as, write in a professional voice, rewrite this paragraph in a persuasive voice, or sound friendly and exciting!

• Format – Describe how you want the feedback from your prompt to look, or be formatted.

Once you’re comfortable using the key elements for effective prompting, you might want to try using your natural conversations skills. When you use conversational prompts, you’re essentially tapping into how people naturally communicate and access knowledge. Explore the “Four Pathways of AI Interaction” article below for more information about natural conversation prompting.