1. Crafting powerful prompts
You've taken a big step into the world of ChatGPT, and that’s worth recognizing. Learning how to use AI effectively might seem overwhelming at first, but you’ve already tackled one of the most important skills—crafting strong prompts.
In the exercises you just completed, you worked on specifying context criteria and task criteria. That’s a game-changer!
If you don’t provide enough details in a prompt, you might get a response that’s too vague or not quite what you need. But when you give clear instructions and the right background, ChatGPT can generate something much more useful.
Let’s take an example. If you simply ask, “Write a summary,” you might get something helpful, but it could be too short, too long, or not in the right style. But if you say, “Summarize this article in three bullet points for a beginner audience,” you’re in control of the output. By specifying both the task and the context, you’re setting ChatGPT up for success.
And here’s something even more exciting: examples and personas blend both worlds. When you give ChatGPT a sample response to follow or ask it to write as if it were a teacher, a journalist, or even a stand-up comedian, you’re shaping both the background and the specific instructions at the same time.
Now, we’re going to put that into practice again. We’ll start by specifying the task, making it clear and focused. Then, we’ll layer on context to fine-tune the response even further. Let’s get to it!
2. Let's practice!