What is Prompt Engineering?
Prompt engineering is the process of carefully designing and crafting the questions, commands, or inputs given to artificial intelligence (AI) systems like chatbots, virtual assistants, or machine learning models. The goal is all about making questions or requests that are easy for computers to understand and respond to in the way you want.
Imagine you have a chatbot, and you want it to provide you with information about space exploration. Instead of simply saying, “Tell me about space,” you would engineer a more specific and effective prompt like, “Can you provide a summary of the latest Mars rover mission?”
Why Prompt Engineering
In the AI powered era of 2023, the skill of prompt engineering is needed more than ever. Whether you’re a developer, student, a freelance writer, or any online small business owner you can use AI to brainstorm ideas, generate unique content, or overcome creative blocks. If you still haven’t signed up for Chat GPT, click here ChatGPT (openai.com) to get started.
Prompt engineering allows you to personalize your interactions with AI, creating experiences that align with your goals and preferences.
We have provided a list of ways so you can write effective prompts for GPT-3 and GPT-4 and level up your prompt engineering skills.
Ways to Write Effective Prompts
Provide Background Information
Background information should answer the concern of ‘what’ and ‘why’. Chat GPT can understand you better when you give it the answer to these 2 crucial questions.
For example, lets compare the following prompts
X Tell me ‘why napkins are better than tissue papers’
✔ Write a blog post about ‘why napkins are better than tissue papers’ to convince the audience to start using napkins
Provide Context
Context gives AI models a sense of continuity and relevance. Instead of treating each prompt as an isolated question, they can take into account the entire conversation history.
But even though GPT models can refer back to the conversation history, there is a limit of 3,000 characters. To solve this problem , use these prompts to reflect back on the chat.
- “Let’s go back to the point you made earlier about [previous point]. Can you provide more details on that?”
- “I’m interested in exploring the idea you mentioned earlier regarding [previous point]. Could you expand on it?”
- “You brought up [previous point] earlier. Can you clarify or elaborate on that?
- “Before we move on to a new topic, let’s revisit what you said about [previous point].”
- “You briefly touched upon [previous point] earlier. Could you give me more context or background on that?”
Provide Tone Of Voice
The AI generated text can sometimes be boring, robotic and repetitive. To solve this, you can provide the Chat GPT with specific prompts that align with your requirements.
You’ll see a major difference in the outcomes.
Here are some other examples of prompts for different tones of voice.
Friendly and Informal
- “Respond to this question as if you’re chatting with a close friend.”
- “Give me a casual and friendly response to this query.”
Professional and Formal
- “Write a response with a formal and professional tone.”
- “Imagine you’re addressing a corporate audience and reply accordingly.”
Playful and Creative
- “Respond in a playful and creative manner, as if you’re telling a story.”
- “Give me a response that’s whimsical and imaginative.”
Humorous and Witty
- “Add a touch of humor and wit to your response.”
- “Write something funny or clever in your reply.”
Concise and to the Point
- “Keep your response brief and straight to the point.”
- “Provide a succinct answer without unnecessary details.”
Provide Examples
Providing examples is one of the easiest ways of prompt engineering. These examples can be either positive or negative.
Positive Examples
Positive examples are when you provide the AI with a prompt to follow a specific style of writing, tone of voice, formatting etc. You tell the AI what to do.
For example, look at this prompt:
- Write me a blog about ‘why napkins are better than tissue papers’. Follow the formatting and sentence structure of (insert doc)
In this way , you can have Chat GPT to follow the writing style of any of your previous works to make it less robotic and more personalized
Negative Examples
Negative examples are when you provide the AI with a type of outcome that you don’t want. You tell the AI what not to do.
For example, look at this prompt:
- Write me a blog about ‘why napkins are better than tissue papers’. Here’s a bad example of what not to write (insert doc)
Provide the Length of Response
One of the most efficient ways to prompt the Chat GPT is to provide it with the maximum or minimum length of the response. It helps Chat GPT to include all the desired requirements of the prompt without being redundant and boring.
Provide the Expected Format
Provide your desired format to Chat GPT, for it to produce better responses. This could be paragraphs, bullet points, structured breakdown, key takeaways.
prompt : write me an introduction paragraph for the blog ‘why napkins are better then tissues’ use bullet key points.
Or you can provide Chat GPT with a document to follow its format.
Let’s take a look at these prompts
- Write me the introduction paragraph of a blog ‘why napkins are better than tissue papers’. Follow the formatting type of (insert doc)
Provide a Role
Provide a role or a POV also called as point of view to Chat GPT. This results in the variation of word choice and tone of voice.
Ask the AI itself
Yes , you read it correctly. If you are new to AI and do not have enough knowledge about prompt engineering. You can ask the Chat GPT itself to provide you with effective prompts that meet your requirements
Prompt stacking
You have learnt a bunch of different ways to improve prompt writing for Chat GPT. What happens when you combine all of them in one prompt? Well , maybe not ALL of them but most of them at least. This is called prompt stacking.
Lets see how it works.
Stay Tuned!
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