Free courses / AI Zero to Hero / Lesson 2
Your first good prompt
Give context, a clear task, a useful format and your limits.
A good request has four parts: your situation, the task, the shape you want the answer in, and the limits. You can write like a person; there is no secret syntax.
Try: “I have a busy Tuesday and eggs, spinach and potatoes. Suggest three quick dinners for two, with a short shopping list. Avoid nuts.” Situation, task, format, limit. The answer will be far better than “dinner ideas?”.
When the answer matters, add one more line: “Tell me what you are unsure about.” That gives it permission to admit doubt. It also tells you where to look first.
- Situation, task, format, limits.
- Plain English beats clever phrasing.
- Ask it to flag what it is unsure about.
DOT / THE TRANSLATOR
People think there is a magic phrase. There is not. There is only telling us what you actually want — which, and I say this with love, humans are surprisingly bad at with each other too.
Try it
Rewrite the dinner prompt for something in your actual day. Leave out names, addresses and anything you would not put on a postcard, then run it.
Here is a job I do most weeks: [describe it in one sentence]. Ask me the three questions you would need answered to do it well, then wait for my answers before trying.
Then paste it into whichever assistant you use — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot. Not sure which? Meet them all.
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