How to Write Your First Prompt
Bad prompts get generic answers. The fix is a five-part recipe: role, task, context, format, constraints. Learn it once — it works in every chatbot you will ever touch.
The recipe
1Role — who is it being?
"You are a patient Excel tutor." Roles set vocabulary, depth, and tone in one line. Skip it and you get the generic default voice.
2Task — what should it do?
"Explain VLOOKUP with one worked example." One verb, one deliverable. Vague tasks ("help me with spreadsheets") get vague tours.
3Context — what does it need to know?
"I track inventory for a bakery in..." Background the model cannot guess: your level, your data, your constraints. This part separates okay answers from great ones.
4Format — what shape should the answer take?
"Keep it under 200 words with bullet steps." Length, structure, tone. Models happily ramble unless you specify the container.
5Constraints — what must it avoid?
"No jargon; if you're unsure, say so." Guardrails against the failure modes from Lesson 1 — including asking it to flag uncertainty.
Put together
Run that, then run just "teach me VLOOKUP" in a fresh chat. The difference is the entire lesson: specificity in, quality out.
Three beginner power moves
- Iterate, don't restart: "shorter," "simpler," "give me three options" — follow-ups are free and usually better than reprompting.
- Show an example: paste a paragraph you like and say "match this tone." Examples beat adjectives.
- Ask it to ask you: end with "ask me any questions before you start." It will surface the context you forgot.
Try it now: take one real task from your week — an email, a plan, a summary — and prompt it with all five parts. Then try it with one part. You will feel exactly which parts carry the weight.