AI, ChatGPT, and more generative tools: Prompts and Prompt Engineering

Prompts and prompt engineering

Effective communication is important no matter who or what you are interacting with. This is true with friends, co-workers, when searching Google, or asking Siri for help, and with generative AI. In this page we'll go over how you can create an effective, comprehensive, and clear prompt to get the most helpful responses from an AI system.

• A prompt is the language you use to ask an AI system a question or provide it instruction.
• Prompt engineering is the art of crafting questions or instructions to get the best possible response.

 

Best practices with creating prompts

Watch the below video (you will have to click the Watch on YouTube link to view it) and then review the below best practices for putting together effective prompts.

"I Discovered The Perfect ChatGPT Prompt Formula". YouTube. uploaded by App Of The Day - Skill Leap AI. May 18, 2023

 

Here are areas that are best practices shared in this video. Keep these in mind when writing and following up with AI prompts:

Be specific

• Make sure your prompt is clear and you are clearly sharing the type of answer or output that you are looking for

State your intent

• Give context as to what this information is needed for to help focus the response to be more helpful for your need.

Correct spelling and grammar

• Take time to use proper spelling and grammar.

Direct the output format

• Specify what output you want from your response. This can be regarding the format (in a paragraph, in a table, bullet pointed, bold certain terms) or type of response (provide a definition, or explanation, or argument).

Ask follow up questions

• Keep asking questions if you didn't get your intended information. You don't need to restate the original question. The more information you provide the more it will understand your need and provide you with the needed information.

Experiment with different phrasing

• If needed, consider rephrasing your prompt using different terms or wording.

Prompt for fact-checking

• As we've learned generative AI can provide incorrect information, so it is always good to ask it for sources, links, or citations so that the information can be verified elsewhere.

 

Prompt formula

The formal shared in the video for creating a strong prompt is:

Context + specific information + intent + response format

 

Context - Provide necessary context or background information in your prompts.

• For example, “I am a student in a college-level introductory Communications class.”

Specific information - Explain what you need and what you are asking the AI system to do.

• For example, "I am looking for a list of potential research questions and related topics that have to deal with social media."

Intent - Share the purpose or objective of your prompt and what the information will be used for.

• For example, "I am trying to understand the different areas of this topic so that I narrow this topic into something specific that I can write about in my Communications research paper."

Response format - Tell the system what you want the output to look like. Ask for sources or where more information can be found.

• For example, "Provide a bullet pointed list of potential research questions on this topic. Please include five helpful statistics and links to helpful sources."

 

Sample prompt:

I am a student in a college-level introductory Communications class. I am looking for a list of potential research questions and related topics that have to deal with social media. I am trying to understand the different areas of this topic so that I narrow this topic into something that I can write about in my Communications research paper. Provide a bullet pointed list of potential research questions on this topic. Please include three helpful statistics and links to helpful sources.

-

Some content from this page was created utilizing ChatGPT 3.5. Words are my own.