Open this lesson in your favourite AI. It'll walk you through the why, explain the demo, and quiz you on the try-it list.
Most people type what they want and hope for the best. The whole game of prompting is learning that how you ask changes what you get — more than the model choice, more than the temperature, more than any setting. This first challenge is just to see the gap with your own eyes.
Here's the same task given to the same model, two ways.
Bad prompt
write a summary of this article
Good prompt
You are summarizing a technical article for a busy engineer. Produce: (1) a one-sentence TL;DR, (2) three bullet-point takeaways, (3) one question the article leaves unanswered. Do not use marketing language. Do not invent facts. If unsure, say so. Article: [paste the text here]
The bad one gets you a flat paragraph of obvious points. The good one gets you something you can forward to a colleague.
You are summarizing the text below for a busy [ROLE].
Produce:
1. A one-sentence TL;DR.
2. Three takeaways as bullets.
3. One open question.
Rules: no marketing tone, no invented facts, flag uncertainty.
Text:
"""
[PASTE HERE]
"""