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Sabrina Ramonov 🍄 Posts 20 Practical ChatGPT Tips With Examples

1
20 Practical ChatGPT Tips With
Examples
Translating Prompt Engineering into Practical Examples

Sabrina Ramonov
May 06, 2024

1. Clarify Confusion

2. Read Links and Documents

3. Reveal ChatGPT’s Reasoning

4. Add Veri cation Step

5. Learn Anything Fast

6. Use Quotations to Emphasize Key Things

7. Let 3 Experts Debate

8. Get Custom Formats

9. Add Detail

10. Break It Down

11. Request Speci cs

12. Shu e Ordering

13. Provide Examples

14. Avoid Negative Prompts

15. External References

16. Assign Role

17. Explain Audience

18. Try Again

19. Translate to English

20. Minimize Vague Pronouns (It, They)

Mastering ChatGPT is hard.

The quality of your prompt signi cantly impacts the quality of answers.

A broad question, "Tell me about climate change" may give a generic response.

A more speci c question, "What are the projected impacts of climate change on
coastal cities by 2050?" gives a more detailed and practical response.

Balancing the right amount of background information and context to give

ChatGPT is a delicate challenge.

Not too much, not too li le, just right.

You may need to converse with ChatGPT for several turns to get there.

You may need to rephrase your prompt to curb misinterpretations.

Despite the challenges, mastering ChatGPT is invaluable.

It’s all about your prompt — the instructions you provide.

This post walks through 20 practical ChatGPT tips I use every day.

I’ve included examples, so you can easily copy paste to try them out!

1. Clarify Confusion
Help ChatGPT learn your intent and expectations, so it can tailor its answers.

Ask me clarifying questions until you are over 95% certain that your answers will
be relevant and accurate.

Ask me one question at a time.

2. Read Links and Documents

Use the Link Reader GPT, available in the ChatGPT store.

It’s free!

It lets ChatGPT read:

PDF

PPT

Images

YouTube

Websites

Word docs

Here’s a description of the Link Reader GPT plugin:

Here’s a real example:

I used Link Reader to read my LinkedIn Carousel PDF (where I originally made this
list) and convert it into text format for this blog post.

3. Reveal ChatGPT’s Reasoning

To understand why ChatGPT is giving you particular answers, add this simple
instruction to the end of your prompt:

Explain your reasoning step-by-step.

You can append this to any prompt.

Fascinating to watch ChatGPT’s thinking unfold real-time.

4. Add Veri cation Step

Adding a veri cation step is useful to check a certain condition is true before
ChatGPT nishes answering.

For example:

Tell ChatGPT to search the internet to nd upcoming conferences

Add a veri cation step: check conference date is in the future

If conference date is in the past, tell nd a di erent conference.

ChatGPT will repeat your instruction until it nds a conference in the future,
satisfying your condition.

Check whether <SOMETHING> is correct.

If wrong, try again.

Explain your reasoning step-by-step.

5. Learn Anything Fast

This is a fun prompt to learn about any topic, fast, in an engaging way.

Tell ChatGPT to be an expert, tasked with passing its expertise down to you.

You are an elite ___.

I am your student whom you must pass on your knowledge and expertise.

In a series of sessions, you have to ful ll this duty and see that I have mastered
___ by giving me tests I would face in the real world.

Reddit user Lying_king

6. Use Quotations to Emphasize Key Things

Employ quotations to highlight key items in your prompt.

Focus your answer on the “economic impacts of renewable energy”, particularly

emphasizing global stats and trends.

7. Let 3 Experts Debate

This is called Tree-of-Thought prompting.

ChatGPT pretends to be di erent experts answering the same question.

Each expert explains their thought process step-by-step.

If at any step, an expert realizes they’re wrong, they leave.

This can be applied to general questions, as well as logic and math problems.

Imagine 3 di erent experts answering this question. All experts will write down
one step of their thinking, then share it with the group.

Then all experts go on to the next step, etc.

If any expert realizes they’re wrong, they leave.

The question is:

Here’s an example with the question:

Should we worry now about climate change?

8. Get Custom Formats

One of ChatGPT’s most useful features - return answers in various formats:

csv

code

table

JSON

HTML

LaTeX

bar chart

markdown

bullet point lists

Just ask!

Here’s a sample prompt that returns a table:

Create a table comparing the economic impacts of climate change on three

di erent industries: agriculture, real estate, and insurance. Include the following
columns in the table:

1. Industry

2. Direct Impacts

3. Indirect Impacts

4. Potential Adaptation Strategies

Please ensure that the information is presented clearly, with bullet points for
each impact and strategy to enhance readability.

Here’s the output created by ChatGPT, in table format:

9. Add Detail
A useful way to think about prompts - each prompt has 4 ingredients:

Task

Input data

Context

Examples

Adding more detail to each ingredient generally results in be er answers.

10. Break It Down

Another useful tip is to break down your prompt in concrete steps.

BAD:

Explain how to bake a cake: mix ingredients, bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes,
let it cool.

GOOD:

Step 1. Explain how to prepare cake mix. What ingredients are needed?

Step 2. Talk about baking: what temperature and duration?

Step 3. Explain the cooling technique.

11. Request Speci cs

Ask ChatGPT to take speci c steps that you want included in the answer:

BAD:

Explain how to calculate market capitalization.

GOOD:

First, de ne “market capitalization”.

Then, describe the formula to calculate it.

Finally, provide an example calculation using hypothetical share numbers and

share price.

12. Shu e Ordering

The order of sentences in your prompt impacts the answer.

Try mixing it up!

Why does sequence ma er?

Context Se ing

The initial sentences in a prompt often set the context.

This initial information can seem more immediate or important because it frames
the topic and guides how subsequent information is interpreted.

Starting a prompt with a topic or question focuses the response on that area,
potentially prioritizing it over other items mentioned later.

Logical Flow

The logical ow created by the order of sentences in your prompt can lead to
di erent interpretations and answers. A well-structured prompt progresses
logically from one point to the next, facilitating a consistent response.

Memory Constraints

In longer prompts, sometimes ChatGPT pays more a ention to information at the

beginning and end, diminishing the impact of information in the middle.

13. Provide Examples

This is formally known as “few-shot learning”.

It allows ChatGPT to adapt to new tasks with minimal input.

By providing a few clear, well-de ned examples in your prompt, ChatGPT be er

understands your desired output and the task’s nuances.

Instructions: Please categorize the following texts by their sentiment: positive,

negative, or neutral.

Examples:

1. Text: "I absolutely loved the new Spider-Man movie!"

Sentiment: Positive

2. Text: "It rained all day during our beach vacation."

Sentiment: Negative

3. Text: "The book was delivered on time."

Sentiment: Neutral

Texts to Categorize:

Text: "This co ee is the worst I've ever tasted."

Text: "What an amazing game! Totally worth watching."

Text: "He goes to the gym regularly."

14. Avoid Negative Prompts

Write positive, direct, clear prompts.

Let LLMs gure it out.

BAD:

Don't give me a technical explanation

GOOD:

Provide a simple non-technical summary.

15. External References

To tailor responses, give ChatGPT:

Domain-speci c knowledge

Examples of writing style and tone

Fact-checking sources

Specialized instructions

By integrating domain-speci c knowledge and specialized instructions, ChatGPT

will provide more accurate, relevant, and detailed responses.

Incorporating fact-checking enhances the reliability and credibility of outputs.

I recommend Perplexity AI if citing sources is important for your use case.

Tailoring ChatGPT's output to t speci c writing styles and tones (e.g., formal,
conversational, persuasive) enhances its ability to engage di erent audiences.

One neat trick: ask ChatGPT to answer in several di erent voices.

16. Assign Role

You are an expert in quantum computing

I want you to act as an intellectual property lawyer

17. Explain Audience

The audience is unfamiliar with biology.

Summarize the paper by simplifying complex terms and focusing on overall

ndings and broader implications in healthcare.

18. Try Again

If you’re not happy with ChatGPT’s answers, here’s a quick way to iterate:

Try again.

Do more of this: A, B, C

Follow the constraints: X, Y, Z

19. Translate to English

ChatGPT performs much be er in English.

First ask ChatGPT to translate your prompt into English.

Then run the prompt.

20. Minimize Vague Pronouns (It, They)

Minimize use of vague or unde ned pronouns.

ChatGPT needs a clear understanding of your instructions.

BAD:

Explain how they impact global economies.

GOOD:

Explain how digital currencies impact global economies.

Keep reading

ChatGPT for Beginners (Part 5)

Can ChatGPT write essays or articles? Can
ChatGPT write social media posts?

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