Writing Good Prompts

Understand what a prompt is

A prompt is the message you send to ChatGPT. The quality of ChatGPT's response depends almost entirely on the quality of your prompt. A weak prompt gets a generic, average response. A strong prompt gets a specific, useful response tailored exactly to what you need. Most people use ChatGPT like a search engine — short, vague questions. That is the wrong approach. The right approach is to give ChatGPT context, a role, a specific task, and a format.

Learn the 4 parts of a strong prompt

A strong prompt has 4 parts. Context — who you are and what situation you are in. Role — what you want ChatGPT to be (an expert, a teacher, a copywriter). Task — exactly what you want it to produce. Format — how you want the answer structured. You do not need all 4 every time, but the more you include, the better the result.

See the difference in action

Weak prompt: "Write something about my business." Result will be generic and useless. Strong prompt: "You are a social media copywriter who specialises in Nigerian small businesses. Write 3 Instagram captions for a new suya restaurant opening in Lekki, Lagos. The restaurant is called Mallam's Spot. The target customer is young professionals aged 22–35. Make the captions exciting and end each one with a call to action. Maximum 3 sentences each." The difference in quality will shock you the first time you see it.

Practice by rewriting weak prompts

Here are 3 weak prompts. Rewrite each one in your head using the 4 parts framework: "Help me with my essay." / "Give me business ideas." / "Write a message for my friend's birthday." For each one, think: what is the context? What role should ChatGPT play? What exactly do I want? What format? The more specific your prompt, the better your result. This skill — knowing how to give AI good instructions — is one of the most valuable tech skills you can have right now.