Improving your ChatGPT prompts can unlock more accurate, relevant, and creative responses from this powerful AI tool. Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to optimize your content or a casual user aiming for better interaction, refining your prompts is essential. Here are some simple yet effective pointers to enhance your ChatGPT experience and get the most out of your conversations.
Improve Your ChatGPT Prompts with These Simple Pointers
1. Forget Politeness
You don’t need to be polite when prompting ChatGPT. It’s a robot, not a person. Forget please and thank you; it doesn’t make a difference. Save the characters for more useful instructions such as examples, more detail, or clarification on any ambiguous terms. For best results, use the phrases “Your task is” and “You must.” Write clear prompts, give clear instructions, and save the fluff for humans.
2. Include the Audience
The prompt should reference the intended audience, so ChatGPT knows who the output is for. It will then keep them in mind when generating your articles, social media posts, or web copy for results that resonate better with your customers.
3. Use Sequences
If you break down a complex task into logical steps, ChatGPT should better understand what’s required. Instead of a big text block, give instructions one prompt at a time. After each one, check understanding and signal that more are on their way. If adding the sequence within one prompt, use line breaks to avoid confusion and ensure you get the answers you’re after.
4. Use Positive Commands
Tell ChatGPT what to do instead of what not to do. For example, instruct it to “use only red and green” instead of “don’t use pink and purple.” This provides greater clarity, increasing the likelihood of a valuable response.
5. Ask for Further Clarification
If ChatGPT produces something that doesn’t make sense, add these phrases to request more information: “Explain [insert specific topic] in simple terms,” “Explain to me like I’m 11 years old,” “Explain to me as if I’m a beginner in [field].” According to the study, you can even add, “I’m going to tip $xxx for a better solution!”
Read: 5 ChatGPT Prompts to Help Your Business
6. Include Examples
Implement example-driven prompting when formatting. That way, ChatGPT knows the kind of response you’re looking for, from which to base its predictions. Format examples properly so they work within the prompt. Use either “### example ###” or “[Example]”. Don’t stop formatting there. Use line breaks to separate instructions, examples, questions, context, and data. This helps the tool understand which part of your prompt is which.
7. Threaten Punishment
You wouldn’t threaten your human team members, but you can threaten ChatGPT. Researchers found that using the phrase “You will be penalized if…” produced better results.
8. Ask it to Be More Human
ChatGPT has giveaway signs of AI-generated content; some are so signature they are comical. You can request that it become more human by including this line in your prompts: “Answer in a natural, human-like manner,” and request that it leave specific words out. Skip the ChatGPTisms for better responses.
9. Tell ChatGPT How to Think
Be direct about how you want the tool to process your information for better output every time. Use leading words like “think step by step” to provoke chain-of-thought responses so you catch mistakes early on.
10. Avoid Stereotypes
ChatGPT was trained on 300 billion words of content from the internet, many of which contain stereotypes and biases. Make it aware of its own bias by adding, “Ensure that your answer is unbiased and does not rely on stereotypes.”
11. Ask it to Ask You
You don’t know what you don’t know. Rather than predicting what you should have mentioned in the prompt, ask ChatGPT to tell you the gaps. Include the instruction, “Ask me questions to get the information you need,” in your prompt, emphasizing that it should do this before providing answers.
12. Assign a Role
Want a marketing manager? Say, “Act as a marketing expert.” The same goes for a legal expert, accountancy expert, and business analyst. Doing this brings better results. Tell ChatGPT whose wisdom it should channel in its response to ensure it aligns with your goals.
13. Use Delimiters
Delimiters specify the boundary between separate, independent regions in streams of text. They include brackets, commas, angled brackets, and square brackets. Use delimiters in your prompts to separate information so that it will be most likely to be computed in ChatGPT.
14. Frequency Matters
If something is necessary for your request, repeat it. The primacy-recency effect is in play when prompting ChatGPT. Repeat a specific word or phrase multiple times within a prompt, especially at the start and end of your command. Hammer home the requirement with ChatGPT.
15. Combine Techniques
Don’t rely on adding one best practice method. Combine them. For example, asking ChatGPT to provide answers step by step, giving examples, and assigning a role will maximize your prompt further.
16. Prompt the Response
If you know how you want the response to start, tell ChatGPT. Imagine you’re asking it to write a LinkedIn post, but you see the hook. End your prompt with the start of the desired response to guide the conversation to the right answer.
17. Don’t Change What Works
If you ask for a rewrite, you’ll get many synonyms. Sometimes, you just want a gentle edit. Use this request when that’s the case: “Revise each paragraph to improve grammar and vocabulary while keeping the original writing style.” The paper suggested adding, “You should only improve the user’s grammar and vocabulary and ensure it sounds natural. You should not change the writing style, such as making a formal paragraph casual.”
Read: 5 ChatGPT Prompts to Refine Your CV and Land That Interview
18. Finish Your Sentences
If you’ve written an entire article or social media post but need it wrapped up compellingly, share the start and ask for the end. “Your task is to complete this [song, post, blog, etc.] in a [describe the style, for example compelling, persuasive, empowering way], by [include other requirements] and keeping the flow. Here’s the beginning: [Paste work].”
19. Provide Sample Copy
If you have the text you want to emulate, give it to ChatGPT. Trying to prompt a specific writing style is incredibly challenging without providing an example, so include one. Include the instruction, “Use the same language style as the provided [describe the text]: [paste the sample].”
20. Always Be Clear
While this might sound obvious, it’s always worth double-checking. Before you hit send, read your prompt through. Check for anything that could be misinterpreted. Compare your prompt to how you’d ask a natural person the same thing, and consider what questions they would have next. Your requirements should include all relevant keywords, rules, hints, or instructions to set ChatGPT up for success.
Prompting ChatGPT is a skill you can improve, like any other. Study best practices, experiment, iterate your words and go again. Learn what works well to get the best results from effortless inputs. Access the benefits of more work in less time when you master this art.