What is a good prompt?

The five ingredients

You do not need all five every time. For a quick question, one or two are enough. For anything you will send or rely on, use all five.

• Goal: what you want and what it is for. "A 100-word summary for my manager to decide whether to fund this" beats "summarise this".
• Context: the background the AI cannot know, such as your audience, your organisation, the facts, and what has already been tried.
• Input: the material to work from, pasted or described, clearly separated from your instructions.
• Format: length, structure (bullets, table, email), tone and language, for example British English.
• Quality checks: ask it to state assumptions, flag uncertainty, or ask questions before answering.

Before and after

The second version gives the role, setting, audience, constraints and a placeholder for the fact the AI cannot know. That last point matters. Without it, the AI may make up a salary.

Before: "Write a job advert for a receptionist."

After: "Write a job advert for a part-time receptionist (three days a week) at a small dental practice in Leeds. Audience: local people returning to work, so keep it welcoming and jargon-free. Include duties, hours, and how to apply by email. Do not invent a salary; write [salary] as a placeholder. About 200 words, British English."

Common mistakes

• Being too short. One-line prompts invite generic answers.
• Assuming knowledge. The AI does not know your company, your customers or yesterday's meeting unless you tell it.
• Mixing instructions with material. Put the text you want processed after a clear label such as "Text:".
• Asking for everything at once. Break big jobs into steps: outline first, then sections.
• Not saying what to avoid. "No jargon", "do not add facts not in my notes" and "no more than 5 bullets" are powerful.
• Trusting the first answer. Treat it as a draft.

Useful phrases to keep handy

• "Before answering, ask me up to three questions if anything is unclear."
• "Only use the information I have given you."
• "If you are not sure, say so rather than guessing."
• "Give me two different options and explain the trade-off."
• "Write for someone who has never heard of this topic."
• "Use British English spelling."

How to check the answer

AI tools can produce confident-sounding errors, especially with numbers, dates, names, laws and quotes. Before you rely on an answer, check facts against a trustworthy source (for UK rules, usually GOV.UK). Recalculate any figures. Read it as the intended reader would, and remove anything you cannot stand behind. If the stakes are high, such as legal, medical or financial matters, use AI only to prepare questions for a qualified professional.

Also check what you are sharing. Do not paste personal data or confidential information into a tool unless your organisation has approved it for that purpose.

Good prompts for different jobs

The same ingredients apply whatever you are doing, but the emphasis changes. For writing tasks, audience and tone matter most. For analysis, precise descriptions of your data and a request to show the working matter most. For research, ask for sources and uncertainty flags. For brainstorming, ask for quantity and variety first, then narrow down with a second prompt.

For repeated tasks, write the prompt once as a template with gaps in square brackets, such as [client name], [deadline] or [key points]. Templates save time and give you consistent results, which matters when several people in a team use the same tool.

A one-minute prompt check

• Would a capable new colleague understand exactly what you want?
• Have you said who it is for?
• Have you given the facts it needs, rather than hoping it knows them?
• Have you said what format and length you want?
• Have you told it what not to do?

Good prompts are iterative

Even skilled users rarely get the perfect result first time. Short follow-ups such as "make it warmer", "cut it by a third", "you missed the deadline point" or "turn this into a table" refine the answer quickly. Over time you will notice which instructions make the biggest difference for your work. Save those prompts and reuse them.

Practise and measure

The best way to improve is to practise on real tasks and get feedback. The free PromptRank assessment gives you a score out of 100 using a fixed rubric (no AI marking), so you can see where your prompting is strong and where it needs work, then try again.