How to Write Good AI Prompts

The four-part recipe

1. Context — what is the situation and who is asking? "I'm planning a 40th-birthday dinner for 10 people, two are vegetarian."
2. Role — who should the AI be? "Act as an experienced dinner-party cook."
3. Task — the specific job. "Propose a menu I can mostly make the day before."
4. Format — the shape of a good answer. "Give me a shopping list grouped by supermarket aisle."

Skip a part and the model guesses — usually blandly. Include all four and the output jumps in quality immediately. That is 80% of prompt engineering.

Five habits that level you up fast

• Show an example. "Format it like this: …" and paste a sample.
• Ask for the outline first. Agree on the plan, then ask for the full version. Cheaper than fixing a long wrong answer.
• Iterate instead of restarting. "Tighter, cut the jargon, keep section 2."
• Demand sources. "Cite where that comes from — say so if you're not sure." This both reduces hallucination and tells you when to double-check.
• Give it an out. "If the list is incomplete, say so" measurably reduces confident nonsense.

A before/after example

Before: "Write an email to my landlord."

After: "Act as a polite but firm tenant. Write a short email to my landlord: the heating broke 5 days ago, I reported it twice (Oct 10 and Oct 14), and I want a repair date. UK English, under 120 words, no legalese."

Same tool, same person, completely different result — the difference is the recipe above.