Prompting with Microsoft Copilot
1. Prompting with Microsoft Copilot
Copilot can only give you what you ask for. So let's look at how to ask well.2. Why prompt engineering matters
Imagine you ask your colleague to "put together a quick presentation".3. Why prompt engineering matters
They come back with twenty slides full of charts. But you needed three slides with headlines, for a meeting tomorrow. The request was too vague.4. Why prompt engineering matters
Copilot works the same way. A vague prompt leaves it guessing, and you get something you have to redo. A specific prompt gets you a usable draft first time.5. The GCSE Framework
A good prompt usually has four parts. GCSE is a way to remember them: Goal, Context, Source and Expectation. Let's take each one, with an example.6. Goal
Goal is what you want Copilot to produce. Lead with a verb and name the thing: draft a one-page summary of the Q2 results. That tells Copilot what it's making before anything else.7. Context
Context is the background Copilot can't infer. Who is this for, and what does it need to cover? Here we've added: cover objectives, reach and engagement. So the summary includes what the reader actually cares about.8. Source
Source tells Copilot where to get the facts. Name the file: use the attached Q2_Report.docx. Be specific - if you just say "the Word file", Copilot has to go searching, and it may pick the wrong one. Without a source, it falls back on guesswork.9. Expectation
Expectation is how you want the answer to look. Format, length, tone. Four short bullet points, formal tone. That's what makes the output usable straight away, instead of something you have to reshape.10. The GCSE Framework
Those four together are a checklist you can run before writing any prompt. You won't always need all four, but it's worth asking whether one is missing. And this isn't a Copilot trick - the same four parts make a better prompt in any AI assistant you use.11. Putting it all together
Here's all four in one prompt. It starts with the goal - summarize the key points from our Q2 sales strategy - and then gives the context: the quarter it covers, and the channels included.12. Putting it all together
Then the source, named exactly: use the attached Q2_Sales_Strategy.docx. And the expectation: four short bullet points, professional tone. Read it back and it's a sentence you'd actually write to a colleague.13. Let's practice!
Now let's use the GCSE framework in Copilot itself.Create Your Free Account
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