Chapter 4: Prompt Engineering – How to Ask Better Questions and Get Smarter Answers
4.1 Introduction A well-crafted prompt is the key to unlocking ChatGPT’s full potential. Prompt engineering is the art and science of designing input instructions that guide the AI to produce accurate, relevant, and high-quality responses. In this chapter, we explore how to create powerful prompts, common mistakes to avoid, and examples across different use cases. 4.2 What is Prompt Engineering? Prompt engineering is the process of framing your query or command to get optimal results from a language model. Because ChatGPT responds based on context, clarity and specificity in prompts significantly influence the output. Key Principles: Clarity: Be precise in what you ask. Context: Provide enough background. Structure: Break complex queries into parts. Intent: Indicate the goal or tone you want. 4.3 Types of Prompts 1. Instructional Prompts Ask ChatGPT to do something directly. Example: “Summarize this article in three sentences.” 2. Question-Based Prompts Frame your input as ...