Writing
How to ask an AI tool for what you want
A vague request gets a vague answer. Give an AI tool some context, one example and the format you need, and what comes back is worth keeping.
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Why are the answers so generic?
Because the tool knows nothing about you. It gets one sentence and fills in the rest with whatever is most common.
Ask for a text for your website and you get the text of somebody else's website. The tool does what it can with what you gave it.
What goes into a good request?
Four things, in this order.
- Who you are and who the result is for.
- What you want, in one concrete sentence.
- An example of something you like, or something you definitely do not want.
- The format, with length, tone and how many versions.
What does the difference look like?
A weak request would be "write a description of my exhibition". What comes back would fit any exhibition anywhere.
A better one says you are a painter, the show is twelve canvases about the river in your home town, and the text goes on the gallery wall. It also says a hundred words, and please no "breathtaking".
The second request takes longer to write. It saves you correcting three wrong answers.
What if the first answer is no good?
Reply the way you would to a new assistant. Say what is wrong and give an example. Shorter, no word passion, talk to me like a friend.
Four or five rounds of conversation usually get further than starting again from scratch.
Is there anything you should not ask?
Keep client data, contracts and figures you would not want leaving the house out of it. Read the tool's terms before pasting in anything that is not yours.
And check the facts. An answer written with confidence can still be wrong. Dates, names and laws get confirmed somewhere else.
If you want help setting up the requests you make every day, write to us.
Start with an email.
The six questions come next.
What you send us stays between us, and it leaves here as your files.