The Anatomy of a Perfect Prompt

This chapter is from the book

AI Prompt Engineering Absolute Beginners Guide

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

AI Prompt Engineering Absolute Beginners Guide

Learn More Buy

Putting It All Together

Now that you know what you should and shouldn’t include in an AI prompt, let’s put it all together to look at how to construct a complete prompt. Referencing all the previously discussed elements, follow this format:

[task] [format] [topic] [tone] [context] [requirements/constraints] [optional elements]

For example, if you want to write a college-level paper about the Revolutionary War, you can identify the elements shown in Table 3.1.

TABLE 3.1 Elements of a Prompt for a Scholarly Paper

Now all you have to do is put all that together in a prompt. Here’s what that might look like:

Write a 1,000-word paper in MLA format about the Revolutionary War. Use a scholarly tone appropriate for an audience of college history professors and include information about the role of the Founding Fathers. The goal is to convince the audience to provide additional funding for my research.

Figure 3.1 shows the beginning of the paper, as written by ChatGPT.

FIGURE 3.1

The opening paragraphs of a scholarly paper about the Revolutionary War, as created by ChatGPT.

Follow this format to create prompts for all types of tasks. As another example, let’s say you want to create a short story for a six-year-old boy about superheroes in his neighborhood. Table 3.2 details the necessary elements.

TABLE 3.2 Elements of a Prompt for a Children’s Story

And here’s the resulting prompt:

Tell me a bedtime story less than five minutes long about superheroes in our neighborhood for a six-year-old boy. The tone should be lighthearted, not scary, and help put the boy to sleep.

Figure 3.2 shows the beginning of just such a story, as written by DeepSeek.

FIGURE 3.2

The first part of a bedtime story about superheroes, as conceived by DeepSeek.

You can also use this approach to create prompts for images, videos, and music. For example, if you want to generate a photo of an older couple at the dinner table for a marketing brochure, you’d use the elements shown in Table 3.3.

TABLE 3.3 Elements of a Prompt to Create a Photographic Image

Here’s the resulting prompt:

Generate a photorealistic image in landscape format of an older couple sitting next to each other at a dinner table. The vibe should be warm and appropriate for a marketing brochure. The couple should be holding hands and smiling. The goal is to help sell life insurance.

Figure 3.3 shows just one of the images generated by Midjourney from this prompt.

FIGURE 3.3

A photorealistic image of an older couple at the dinner table, as generated by Midjourney.

As you can see, when you follow this format and include the proper elements, you get pretty good results. It’s a good place to start with your prompt engineering.

And, to help you get started, here’s a blank form you can copy and use for your own prompt construction. It’s labeled as Table 3.4, but it’s really a prompt element template for your use.

TABLE 3.4 Prompt Element Template