Get Better at ChatGPT in 2024 With This Quick & Easy Prompt Guide
A beginner's guide to ace your work and get 2x better.
Before you proceed, understand the difference between a Google search and an AI prompt.
Google is a search engine, designed to display information from the Internet. It looks up the Internet, gathers website links and shows it to you. You have to decide on the link to click.
ChatGPT is a language generation model, designed to understand and create ready output in human-like text form. It executes tasks for you based on the problems you mention via prompts.
Here’s an analogy.
Imagine walking up to a librarian and asking for self-help books. The librarian will pull out relevant books for the self-help category and hand them out to you.
This librarian is Google Search.
Now imagine talking to a friend about self-help books. You ask her questions, seek advice and discuss different books under this category. She shares her knowledge with you from reading other books. Like a normal conversation.
This friend is ChatGPT.
ChatGPT can make your life easier, if you know how to use it.
And that's where prompts come in handy.
I use ChatGPT for work and to proofread my writing, sometimes.
Here’s a ChatGPT prompt I use for writing.
Act as an expert editor and proofreader. You have been editing and proofreading for more than 15 years.
I need your help as I want you to edit and proofread an article I wrote.
You need to correct and fix all the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, check the tone throughout the article, check the flow of the article from one point to another. Correct the flow if it is missing.
Rewrite the article with all the corrected changes.
Here’s the article: [….]”
Here’s another I refer to create user persona in product management.
Act as a product manager building a credit card onboarding application for Indian Banks that will be used by customers to apply for credit cards from across India. Create 5 ideal user personas for me suitable to the Indian market. Present the user personas in a tabular format.
In both the prompts, I’ve commanded ChatGPT to act at a certain job role, with specific experience.
Look at the second prompt. I’ve instructed ChatGPT to give me result in a particular format- in a tabular format.
The first prompt modified the existing text. The second prompt created a fresh text as asked.
And both of them follow a specific pattern, a template.
That template to ChatGPT prompts boils down to
(Act) As a [type of user/role], perform [task], present output in [format]
The possible placeholders for
type of user/role can be a coder, content writer, copywriter, doctor, web developer, any role you work as.
task can be anything in the world under your role. Instruct ChatGPT to outline a blog, generate ideas, generate code, modify content, etc.
Here’s an example with count limit.
Come up with 10 possible title ideas for a blog post based on the keyword “[keyword]” Each title must have the exact keyword. The titles should not be longer than 60 characters in total.
Last is output. This can be a table, code, bullet points.
While you’ve learned to generate content from ‘experts’, sometimes you don’t need specific field expertise.
Sometimes, requests can be as simple as to check grammatical errors. Or to outline a blog.
For instance, while drafting a mail, you can ask ChatGPT to correct grammar and tone using the prompt template.
This sentence has grammatical mistakes and spelling errors. Please correct it and rewrite with changes. <paste your sentence>
Or if you’re not sure of your text, then use below.
I’ve written this text to mail my colleague for a document preparation. Please rewrite it in simpler terms and using casual tone. <paste your text>
Now, let's say you want a blog title or headline recommendation.
I want to start a blog. I’m interested in [topic]. Give me 5 topic areas and 10 specific blog post ideas for each.
Write a conclusion for a blog post titled [blog title]. In conclusion, share a short personal reflection about [content]. The conclusion should be [count] words max and should be written in […] tone.
You can also feed ChatGPT with examples.
ChatGPT will refer them to emulate the tone. It’ll replicate this tone and share it in response.
Give me 5 headlines about weight loss. Here are some examples of headlines related to this topic of weight loss: How to lose weight in 5 weeks, Find a quicker way to lose weight.
The above example has a topic (weight loss) and headline examples (How to lose weight in 5 weeks, Find a quicker way to lose weight.) fed in the request.
ChatGPT is fun and profitable if you learn how to use it.
Use these prompts, tweak them and enjoy the results.
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