Prompting dos and don'ts

- [Instructor] Now that we've looked at the main ingredients of well-written prompts, let's get a little more specific and talk about other ways to increase your chances of getting good results and avoiding common pitfalls by looking at some dos and don'ts. The first do is something we've touched on already, but when writing a prompt, it's important to be clear and specific about what you want. And this has to do with all the aspects of the results you want. Other than the topic, be sure to specify things like the tone, the purpose, and the length of the response you want. Framing questions or requests in direct and unambiguous ways reduces the likelihood of misunderstandings and produces better results. Next, keep things conversational, meaning use plain conversational language, but also give Copilot feedback on its responses. Let it know if an answer didn't quite hit the mark or if it's on the right track. This helps Copilot learn and hone in on your preferences. Keeping your interaction conversational also makes it easier for Copilot to build on previous exchanges in the conversation, allowing for more nuanced and context-aware responses. This can be particularly beneficial if you're asking Copilot for help with tasks that require an ongoing dialogue like troubleshooting, planning, or learning. Also, when appropriate, provide examples and guidance of what you're looking for. For instance, when asking Copilot to generate text, you might ask it to compose the content in the style of your favorite thought leader or author. Using examples with specific keywords or phrases focuses Copilot's attention on exactly what you're looking for and make sure that the results are more closely in line with your needs. For instance, instead of just asking Copilot to write an email to a team of project stakeholders asking for their feedback, provide specific guidance on what you want the email to say. For example, write a professional email to your project stakeholders requesting feedback on the recent software development project. Start with thanks for their support, then ask for specific feedback on the new user interface, feedback feature, and system performance. Suggest a follow-up meeting next week, and with appreciation for their support and eagerness to receive their detailed comments. So a prompt like this that provides examples and guidance is going to get you much better results than a basic prompt of write an email to your project stakeholders. Now, another important factor in good prompt writing is to use correct punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. Now, Copilot will often get the gist of what you're saying if you don't use proper punctuation, grammar, or even spelling, but it might not give you the best quality responses, especially for a professional setting. So be sure to write as properly as possible. Now, this next one might seem a little strange, but it can actually improve your responses from Copilot if you're polite and use kind and respectful language. AI models like Copilot often mirror the tone and style of the input they receive. So polite and respectful prompts tend to result in similarly positive responses. And keeping up this professional tone throughout your conversations can improve Copilot's responsiveness and performance. And lastly, do check Copilot's responses for accuracy. Copilot, like all AI models, will occasionally make mistakes, omit information, or sometimes just be completely wrong about something. So always check its responses for accuracy, grammar, and tone, and keep an eye out for unnecessary or inappropriate content. Don't let Copilot's mistakes become your mistakes and reflect on your professionalism. And with that in mind, let's look at some don'ts. A lot of these parallel the dos, but it's a good way to reinforce these ideas. Starting with don't just copy and paste Copilot's responses and use them as your own. Copilot is a great research and writing tool, but in line with always checking its accuracy, you should always take the time to edit or use the responses it provides and put them in your own voice and style. This maintains your authenticity and can preserve your brand consistency by making sure what you're writing aligns with the tone established in your other communications. Next, don't be vague, and that ties into the do we discussed of being clear and specific. Vague prompts will get you vague or unuseful replies. Don't use slang or jargon. Again, keeping your tone and language professional and polite will give you the best results. Using slang words or jargon may cause Copilot to respond in a similar fashion and result in low quality or unprofessional responses. Don't provide conflicting instructions. This basically means don't set up a prompt that includes multiple or conflicting instructions in the same request. For example, write a brief, detailed report on the latest trends in renewable energy technology. Make sure it's concise but also comprehensive, covering solar, wind, and hydroelectric power advancements. Now this is kind of an extreme example, but you can see how something like this prompt is likely to confuse Copilot because we're asking for a brief, detailed report that's both concise and comprehensive. But what you could try in this case is to break down your requests into two distinct parts of a conversation with Copilot. For instance, you might instead start by requesting the detailed response. Write a detailed report on the latest trends in renewable energy technology. Make sure it's comprehensive, covering solar, wind, and hydroelectric power advancements. So this allows Copilot to focus solely on providing comprehensive information without worrying about word count or brevity. It can cover all the necessary details to make sure all the relevant information is included. Once it's done that, you can continue the conversation and write your second prompt, asking it to refine and condense the report to a specific word count or to simplify the response. In this case, please summarize the detailed report into a brief 300-word overview, focusing on the key advancements in solar, wind, and hydroelectric power from the last year. Aim for a clear, concise summary suitable for an executive audience. So these two prompts guide Copilot through a logical, two-stage process that doesn't contain conflicting instructions. Notice, we also included the word please, which is consistent with the do of being polite. And we also included all the ingredients of a good prompt we discussed earlier, like the goal, which is to create a summary; the source, which is the detail report generated from the first prompt; the context, the summary should be suitable for an executive audience; and the expectation or guidance of aim for a clear and concise summary. Okay, and the last don't is to not change the topic abruptly during a chat with Copilot. If you talk to Copilot about multiple subjects in a single chat, it can potentially confuse and disrupt its writing process or give you unintended results if Copilot tries to create answers in context to previous responses. Instead, anytime you want to move on to a different subject, first type, new task or new topic. That tells Copilot to not take the previous exchanges into account anymore. All right, so hopefully, at this point, we have a clearer understanding of how to write an effective prompt and the factors you should consider when writing them. In the next chapter, we'll take a look at some specific prompt examples in Microsoft 365 apps.