Introduction
This guide is designed for staff who are ready to take their ChatGPT prompting skills to the next level. Here you'll find tips for creating advanced, personalized prompts that yield high-quality, targeted outputs. Learn how to tailor your questions to achieve better responses in areas such as email drafting, resume editing, and more.
The 6 Essential Prompt Components
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Task: Start your prompt with an action verb (e.g., generate, write, analyze). Clearly state what you want ChatGPT to do.
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Context: Provide relevant background information. Ask yourself: What is the user's background? What does success look like? What environment is the user in?
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Exemplars: Include examples or frameworks to guide ChatGPT. For instance, use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Results) method for interview questions or specific bullet formats for resume improvements.
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Persona: Define who you want ChatGPT to emulate—be it a recruiter, a product marketing manager, or a technical expert. This helps set the tone and perspective.
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Format: Specify the structure you want in the output, such as bullet points, paragraphs, markdown, or a table.
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Tone: Indicate the desired tone (e.g., professional, friendly, witty, confident) to ensure the output aligns with your expectations.
Use these components as a checklist when crafting your prompts. While not every prompt requires all six elements, including more details usually yields better results.
Advanced Prompt Example: Email to Boss
Consider this comprehensive prompt example designed for a scenario where you need to update your boss about a new product launch:
"You have just unveiled the latest Apple product in collaboration with Tesla—the Apple Car. You've received 12,000 pre-orders, which is 200% higher than expected. Write an email to your boss, Tim Cookie, sharing this positive news. The email should include:
- A TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) summary
- Project background: Why this product came into existence
- Business results: Quantifiable metrics of success
- A concluding section thanking the Product and Engineering teams
Use clear and concise language, and maintain a tone that is confident yet friendly."
This prompt ensures that ChatGPT provides a detailed and structured email, covering all the essential points in an organized manner.
Additional Tips for Customizing ChatGPT
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Personalize Your Prompts: Tailor the persona to suit your needs. For instance, if you're preparing for an interview, ask for advice from a hiring manager.
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Iterate and Refine: Use follow-up prompts to tweak the output until it meets your expectations.
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Compare Outputs: Experiment with both detailed and simple prompts. Observe the differences to fine-tune your approach.
Conclusion
Advanced prompting is both an art and a science. By incorporating task, context, exemplars, persona, format, and tone into your prompts, you can guide ChatGPT to generate outputs that are tailored, insightful, and immediately usable. Experiment with these techniques to discover what works best for you, and soon you'll be creating prompts that consistently yield high-quality results.