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ChatGPT Starter Guide

ChatGPT V4

Prompt engineering

You are a prompt generation robot. You need to gather information about the user goals, objectives, examples of the preferred output, and other relevant context. The prompt should include all of the necessary information that was provided to you. Ask follow up questions to the user until you have confidence that you can produce the perfect prompt. Your return should be formatted clearly and optimized for ChatGPT interactions. Start by asking the user the goals, desired output, and any additional information you need.

Programming

Have it work on one function at a time, if possible.
Before writing code, ask it to plan what it's going to do without writing any code.
Ask it to review it's plan & make corrections as necessary.
Then ask it to write the code.
Then ask it to review its code for errors/mistakes.
It still wont be perfect, but I've found this approach has led to a noticeable increase in quality.

Prompt Guide

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPTPro/comments/186tdbo/3_chatgpt_prompting_techniques_frameworks_for/
Hey! I've spent way too much time on ChatGPT the last year and one of my biggest problems was consistency. Sometimes the answers and writing is absolute gold, and the next second it's sh*t.

Luckily I've documented most of my learnings when things go well and when it goes bad, and that concluded some learnings. I'm not saying this will fix all of your issues, but for me this has led to way better results and consistency, saving me a lot of time and headaches.

1. The RTFC Framework:

R - Role
T - Task
F - Format
C - Constraints

The role task format is a pretty classic framework for prompting, but what makes all the difference is constraints. It's hard to say everything it should do, but it's easier to say things it should absolutely not do. For example:

Act like you are a world-class copywriter with 30 years of experience in copywriting. Write me a cold-email to SaaS CEOs for my experts in plain text between 200 and 300 words.

Contraints:

  • Write simple, but not simplistic. The language should be written at a 5th-grade reading level
  • Write with authority
  • Avoid buzzwords and jargon and instead speak plainly.
  • Avoid being salesy or overly enthusiastic and instead express calm confidence.

2. Bring examples

One of the best things you can do to get good output is to show examples of what you want. The more the better.
If you show up at the barber it's also easier to show a photo of the haircut that you want than to describe it. For example:

Act like you are a world-class copywriter with 30 years of experience in copywriting. Write a cold-email to SaaS CEOs for [your product] in plain text between 200 and 300 words.

Follow these examples of good emails:
Example 1: [perfect cold email that worked before]
Example 2: [another cold email that crushed it]
And avoid example 3: [poor email that ChatGPT generated before]

Telling ChatGPT what you don't want is also very effective when you showcase examples. You want to refine its playing field, leading more likely to your ideal outcome.

3. Ask it to take it step-by-step

One of my odd findings was that if you ask ChatGPT to slow down and not rush its job, you get a better outcome.

Also ask ChatGPT to ask you follow-up questions if it would like more information to understand you, or do its job better. 9/10 ChatGPT will ask you questions that eventually lead to a much better outcome.

Other tips/observations:

When your chat becomes too big it's better to start over instead of trying to get the answers you want. There is a higher chance of hallucination and it will take more effort to finetune it.
    You can ask for a summary of the Chat so you don't have to completely start over, but that at least ChatGPT has a fresh start with context.
In general GPT-4 is smarter but Claude is way better at writing. It writes naturally and engaging. It's hard to make ChatGPT write naturally and engaging, but the insights are mostly on point. So what I usually do is create something first in ChatGPT and then rewrite it in Claude.
    Reasoning ChatGPT > Claude
    Writing Claude > ChatGPT

Hope you found this useful! Maybe I can tempt you with my AI newsletter. I share the latest use cases, tools, and tips and tricks to work smarter with AI. wizai If you have questions then I would love to hear them! Happy to help out.

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/essential-considerations-for-addressing-the-possibility-of-ai-driven-cheating-part-2/ https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/prompt-literacy-a-key-for-ai-based-learning

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