Overview
Eric Griffith, in his PC Magazine article, defines AI prompt engineering as “writing prompts to get stellar results from an AI.” Writing quality AI prompts can give users better results in less time. To help you with this, we’re providing a list of 10 tips to improve your AI prompts. Use these examples as a starting point and revise them as needed to meet your own specific needs.
10 Tips
- Provide a role: “You are an excellent second grade teacher.”
- Define a task: “You are writing a nonfiction article about polar bears for a lesson on main idea.”
- Identify an objective: “You will use this article to have students identify the main point.”
- Identify an output format: “You will create a 200-word article.”
- Identify an audience: “Your audience is a second grade classroom with 90% of students performing at grade level.”
- Identify tone and style: “The article should be written in an academic style that is fitting for a second grade audience.”
- Provide context: “This is your first lesson about identifying main point.”
- Outline limitations: “The article should be 200 words or less and should be written at a second grade reading level.”
- Provide examples: You could paste in something written at a second grade level.
- Ask follow-up questions: This is done after receiving a response from the AI chatbot.
Integration Ideas
The best way to improve your prompt engineering skills is to practice. Begin by focusing on role, task, audience, and format. Then, based on the results you get, refine your prompts and try again with a different topic. You can also ask follow-up questions or add additional limitations upon receiving a response. Remember that practice will lead to learning and improvement!
How can I learn more?
For more information about artificial intelligence (AI), explore the following AVID Open Access article collection: AI in the K–12 Classroom.