ASAP7 Prompt Formulas for Getting AI to Do Great Work
To get the results you want from AI, skip the one-line question and write a "designed prompt" that fills in seven elements: (1) assign a role, (2) give context and the goal, (3) specify the output format, (4) provide examples, (5) think in steps, (6) state constraints and prohibitions, and (7) make it ask back. These seven are shared principles that work on any chatbot—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini—and the more you combine them, the higher the accuracy and polish of the answers. Save the formulas below like a checklist and they'll be handy to use.
1. Assign a role
If you first give the AI a role—what kind of expert it should answer as—the level and tone of its response fall into line. Set a role like "You're a marketer with 10 years of experience" or "You're a meticulous code reviewer," and the AI answers with that perspective's vocabulary, standards, and priorities. For the same question, the version with an assigned role produces a far more professional and consistent result.
2. Give context along with the goal
When you provide context—what the task is for and who it's aimed at—the AI doesn't bark up the wrong tree. Tell it the purpose, audience, and situation, as in "I'm going to make a 5-minute presentation for new hires," and the AI tunes the difficulty and length of its answer accordingly. Without context, you tend to get plausible-sounding but not-very-useful generalities.
3. Specify the output format
Specifying the format of the result you want in advance dramatically cuts post-processing time. Nail down the format and length—"organize it into a table," "five bullets," "within 300 characters," "in JSON"—and you get it in a form you can use right away. Leave the format blank and you get long, scattered prose you'll have to rework.
4. Show examples
Showing one or two examples of the result you want makes the AI follow the pattern precisely. The approach is to attach a sample of a good answer or an example written in the style you want—this is called "few-shot." Even a tone or structure that's hard to explain at length in words comes across in one go with a single example.
5. Have it think in steps
For complex problems, asking the AI to "think step by step" boosts accuracy. Ask for an answer all at once and it skips reasoning; have it solve in steps and it answers while checking the intermediate work. The more a task involves calculation, analysis, or logic, the greater the effect of this one sentence.
6. State constraints and prohibitions
Writing down not only what to do but what not to do stabilizes the result. Set the length, tone, and prohibited items—"don't use jargon," "facts only, no speculation," "don't exceed 500 characters"—and the AI won't cross the line. Especially for tasks where factual accuracy matters, "if you don't know, say you don't know" is effective at reducing hallucinations.
7. Make it ask back when it's short on information
Instructing the AI not to answer right away when information is lacking, but to ask first, prevents off-target results. The method is to add a single sentence: "If you're short on information, don't guess—ask me first." Instead of the AI filling in the missing conditions on its own and answering wrongly, it asks back for the information it needs, leading to an accurate result.
References: Anthropic Prompt Engineering Guide · OpenAI Prompt Guide