04 — Ask for What You Want

A prompt is the message or instructions you give the assistant. It can be a plain sentence. You do not need magic words. A useful request explains the job and gives the information needed to do it.

Give enough to work with

“Write an invitation” leaves the audience, facts and tone open. “Invite my neighbors to Saturday's cleanup at 10 a.m.; ask them to bring gloves; keep it friendly and brief” makes the result easier to judge.

• Task: what should it help you do?
• Context: the relevant background and facts.
• Audience: who will read or use the result?
• Result: the form, tone and constraints that matter.

Constraints are limits that matter, such as length or facts it must not add. Use only the parts your task needs. For “Explain this word,” one sentence may be enough.

Build a request for your task

Stay in your task's chat, or open a new chat for a different task. Copy the block, replace each bracketed field with your own words, and send it. Delete the brackets after replacing them. Your cleanup invitation from lesson 03 is an easy option.

A simple prompt you can adapt

Copy this prompt

Help me [TASK].

The relevant facts or material are: [FACTS OR TEXT].

This is for [AUDIENCE].

A useful result would be [FORMAT, TONE OR CONSTRAINTS].

If a missing detail matters, ask me. Do not invent facts or take an external action; draft or explain it here.

If it asks a question, answer in the same message box. If you do not know the answer, say so and ask it to leave that detail out or mark it unknown; do not invent an answer.

Check the result — same chat

Copy this prompt

Compare your result with my request and the facts I supplied. What important requirement did you miss, what unsupported detail did you add, or what is unclear for the audience? Identify useful corrections; do not rewrite yet or invent a problem.

Choose a correction and ask for it in your own words. You can say: “Use shorter sentences,” “Explain the second point,” or “Remove that claim because it is not in my notes.” Check changed facts again. If the answer is already useful, keep it.

Carry forward: change the task and facts next time; keep only instructions that helped. Next: lesson 05 helps when you cannot yet describe what you want.

This is alpha material. Report unclear instructions or errors through a public issue or email help@bigleverinstitute.org. Share only redacted or fictional material.