ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool that has taken the world by storm. While it can sometimes make things up, there are a lot of tricks to ensure you get the desired results when writing prompts. That’s what I’m going to do with this post.
In this article, I will show you how to writePrompt word, let the LLM (Large Language Model) in ChatGPT provide the ideal answer.
In fact, writing effective prompts has become an emerging discipline known as "Prompt Engineering."
Focusing on the development and optimization of prompt words, the goal is to help people better utilize large language models (LLM) in various scenarios and research fields. Mastering relevant prompt engineering skills can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the capabilities and limitations of large language models.
How to write effective ChatGPT prompts
1. Talk to the person as if he or she were a friend.AI Conversation
Using ChatGPT is like chatting with a friend. Perhaps we should put aside many of our usual working habits, because ChatGPT is different from previous programs. You have to communicate with it in a more natural way.
Just talk to it as if you were talking to a co-worker or friend. If that doesn't make you feel comfortable, give it a name, like "Bob."
This way, chatting with it will become more natural, and you may add some chat details, share some small stories to make your conversation richer and more interesting, and explore more possibilities.
When communicating with others, you often encounter situations where the other party doesn’t quite understand what you are saying at first and needs you to explain it clearly. Sometimes, the other party may go off topic and you have to bring the topic back.
It's common to add background information or ask complex questions during a chat and then ask new questions based on the other person's answers.
It's like having an interactive conversation. Don't be afraid to ask a series of questions. You ask a question, get an answer, and then ask another question based on that answer.
It's like chatting with a friend. You don't end the conversation by asking your friend a question, but you continue to communicate. The same is true for chatting with artificial intelligence.
All of these are how you should communicate with ChatGPT.
2. Provide detailed background information about the problem
Writing ChatGPT prompts is more than just asking a question. You also need to provide relevant context so it can better understand the context in which your question is being asked.
Let's say you want to prepare for a marathon. You can ask ChatGPT:
How should I prepare for a marathon?
But if you tell the AI that you’re preparing for your first marathon, you’ll get a more detailed answer. The answers you get will be more focused on your needs, such as:
I am a beginner runner and have never run a marathon before, but I want to complete one in six months. How should I prepare for a marathon?
Do you know how you can feed AI more information so it can provide you with more targeted and helpful answers?
Here are two more examples of questions that provide context:
I am planning to travel to Spain in a few months, so I hope to master some basic Spanish so that I can better communicate with the locals. I am looking for some online Spanish learning resources suitable for complete beginners. I especially expect these resources to provide systematic and comprehensive language teaching content, including pronunciation, daily expressions, basic grammar, etc. Can you recommend online Spanish learning resources that meet these conditions?
In cases like this, rather than asking for learning resources, the AI’s responses are contextually focused on learning how to communicate with local residents on the ground. Here’s another example:
I am currently in charge of new media operations for a startup company that focuses on sustainable lifestyles and environmentally friendly products. As competition on social media platforms becomes increasingly fierce, I find it increasingly difficult to attract and maintain the attention of my target audience. I am looking for innovative content creation and interactive strategies to increase our brand's online visibility and user engagement. In addition, I also hope to use data analysis to optimize our marketing strategy, better understand our audience and increase conversion rates. What specific tools or methods can help us achieve our goals in these areas?
In this example, the focus is not just asking about innovative content and engagement strategies, but specifically on leveraging data analytics to optimize marketing strategies and how to achieve goals.
Let me give you a more detailed example of a prompt word.
Note: I limited answers to 500 words or less because ChatGPT seems to cut off between 500 and 700 words, causing the story to break in the middle and have a hard time picking up when you ask it to continue. Hopefully future versions will allow for longer answers.
Here is an example of what I am talking about:
Please write a short story of no more than 500 words.
In Chengdu in 2339, hidden in an ancient alley, there is a bookstore with strong Sichuan cultural characteristics. The existence of this bookstore seems to be out of tune with the surrounding modern buildings. There are the following people in the bookstore:
Shopkeeper: Make this shopkeeper interesting and a little different, give him a name, and at least one skill or trait that will affect his backstory and perhaps the entire short story.
Clerk: There is a clerk in the store named Li Qing.
Customer and his friend: Li Wei and Xiao Fang were two customers who came into the store together. Li Wei was dressed in traditional Chinese clothes, looking both dignified and stylish, while Xiao Fang had obviously just come straight to the bookstore after a day of work at a design company.
Another customer is Wang Lili, who is a regular customer in the store and is in her 40s. Another customer is Chen Xiaoming, who is between 40 and 60 years old. He exudes a mysterious aura and looks both arrogant and mysterious. There is something about Chen Xiaoming that makes other people feel uncomfortable.
A typical concept in retail is that there is always more inventory "in the back," a storage room that holds additional merchandise that may not be on the shelves that customers browse. The premise of this story is that there is something unusual about the "back" of this bookstore.
It all comes together to tell a fascinating and entertaining story.
You can ask ChatGPT: "Help me write a story about a bookstore" and see what it will reply. Then enter the prompt above and you will see the difference.
By trying different prompts, you will find that ChatGPT will perform differently.
3. Ask ChatGPT to role play
ChatGPT can write from the perspective of different people or professions. For example, you can let it write from the perspective of a teacher, a marketing executive, a reporter, and so on.
For example, let ChatGPT describe the Xiaomi Bluetooth speaker from three different perspectives: a product manager, an outdoor fitness enthusiast, and a journalist. Here are the three prompts:
Describe the Xiaomi Bluetooth speaker from a product manager's perspective.
Describe the Xiaomi Bluetooth speaker from the perspective of an outdoor fitness enthusiast.
Describe the Xiaomi Bluetooth speaker from a journalist's perspective.
You can give ChatGPT these three different prompts and see how it responds, but with just a few simple sentences, you can see how ChatGPT can give different answers based on different roles.
You can see that when ChatGPT plays different roles, it answers questions from different perspectives.
4. Don’t let ChatGPT stray from the goal or topic
ChatGPT sometimes goes off topic and talks about things that have no basis or are just made up.
But there are ways you can get it back on track and still keep it authentic.
One of my favorite things is to ask ChatGPT to explain how it came up with its answer. I’ll ask it “Why do you think that?” or “Do you have any evidence to back up your claim?” Most of the time, if it gets the answer wrong, it’ll apologize and come up with a new answer.
Sometimes it can give some useful information about its reasoning path. In any case, remember that you can let ChatGPT tell you where its information comes from.
If you have a long conversation with ChatGPT, you’ll find that it will start to go off topic. But this isn’t just a problem with AI. It’s also easy to go off topic when you chat with people for too long.
So, when you're chatting with ChatGPT, you can guide the conversation in the same way you would with a friend, by gently bringing the topic back to remind it of what we were originally talking about and what you want to know.
5. Don’t be afraid to experiment
A great way to improve your prompt writing skills is to try out what an AI chatbot can do.
Try giving ChatGPT all kinds of interesting prompts and see how it responds. Then tweak those prompts and see what different results you get. Here are five examples for you to consider:
- Imagine you are a raindrop falling from the sky during a thunderstorm. Describe your journey from forming in the cloud to falling to the ground. What do you see? What do you feel? What do you experience?
- Imagine you are a toy that has been forgotten in the attic for decades. Talk about how you feel, the happy times you had playing with your children, and the anticipation of being rediscovered.
- Write the final journal entry of a time traveler who decided to settle in a particular decade, explaining why they chose that decade and what they learned from their travels.
- Imagine two objects that are unlikely to talk (such as a teacup and a watch) are having a conversation and talking about their daily lives and challenges.
- Try describing a day in the life of an ant colony from the perspective of an ant. Dig deep into ants' politics, challenges, and social structure.
When testing these prompts, pay attention not only to what answer ChatGPT gives, but also to how it came to that answer, where it falls short, and where it seems to be limited.
All these details will help you better understand and utilize this tool, making your prompts more effective and diverse.
More Tips for Writing Words
- Feel free to re-ask the question. ChatGPT often changes its answers each time it asks a question.
- Make some adjustments to your prompt to guide it to give you a better answer.
- ChatGPT remembers your previous conversations as long as the current page is open. If you leave the page, it will forget the previous communication. It should be noted that ChatGPT sometimes loses memory "for some reason", so you may have to redirect the conversation from time to time.
- Opening a new page means starting a new conversation.
- Responses longer than 500 words will sometimes be cut off. Please be sure to indicate your desired response length.
- You can correct and clarify your questions based on the AI's previous responses. If it misunderstands you, you can tell it where it got it wrong and continue the conversation.
- If it doesn't want to answer your question, rephrase the question. Use "roles" to lead into questions it may not want to answer.
- If you want to cite a source, tell it to support or prove its answer.
- ChatGPT free users can now use custom commands. You can give ChatGPT a set of ready-to-use prompts so you don't have to retype them.
- Consider subscribing to ChatGPT Plus. This way you can use your own data for powerful analytics. You can also get data from the web.
- Try asking the same question to Gemini or Copilot. They may be able to give you a different perspective or answer.
- Ask for examples. If you want to see how well ChatGPT understands your requirements, ask it "Can you give me three examples of how this works?" or similar questions.
- Ask it to repeat part of your original request. For example, if you asked it to analyze an article, tell it "To make sure you understand, please refer back to the first three headings" or "I want to make sure you understand what I mean, please summarize the main contradictions discussed in this article." Test whether it goes off track.
Sometimes, ChatGPT just fails. Keep trying, but learn to give up and switch to other tools when necessary. It’s not perfect yet…