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Master the fundamentals of communicating with AI — write good prompts and use AI tools effectively. ### Why Prompts Are Important For the same question, different ways of asking can lead to vastly different quality of answers. You may have had this experience: You ask AI: Help me write a report. AI gives you a generic, empty article. But if you change the prompt: I am a product manager, help me write a 2026 Q2 product roadmap report, target audience is the technical team, need 5 main feature points, each feature point should include development cycle and risk assessment, keep it under 800 words. AI gives you a well-structured, specific, ready-to-use document. This is the difference a prompt makes. A prompt (Prompt) is the language you use to communicate with AI. AI can only respond based on the information you provide. The more specific and clear your information, the more the output will match your expectations. > The Golden Rule of Prompts: Vague input leads to vague output; specific input leads to specific output. * * * ## What is a Prompt A Prompt is the text content you input to AI. A prompt can be a question, an instruction, a description, or a combination of these. ### Good Prompt vs. Bad Prompt We use comparisons to illustrate the difference between the two: | Dimension | ❌ Not Recommended | ✅ Recommended | | --- | --- | --- | | Clarity | "Help me write something" | "Help me write an email to customers, informing them that our product will increase by 10% next month" | | Role Setting | "Translate this passage" | "You are a professional English translator, specializing in technical document translation. Please translate the following content into Chinese, maintaining accuracy of technical terms" | | Format Requirements | "Make a list" | "Use an unordered list to list 5 key points, each point no more than 20 characters" | | Context | "Help me check this code" | "This is a Python web scraper code, running error says 'connection timeout'. Help me analyze possible causes and give 3 solutions" | | Style/Tone | "Write a notice" | "Write a holiday notice for all company employees, formal tone, concise content, including holiday time, precautions, and duty arrangements" | See the pattern? A good prompt tells AI: who you are, what to do, for whom, in what format, and what constraints. * * * ## Basic Prompt Structure A complete prompt usually contains these four elements. You don't need to include all of them every time, but the more comprehensive you write, the more controllable the results will be. ### Task Description (What to do) Clearly tell AI what task you want it to complete. This is the core part of the prompt and must be written clearly. > Summarize the main points of this article. > > > Convert this Python code to JavaScript. > > > Help me come up with 10 suitable names for a bubble tea shop. ### Background Information (Context) Tell AI the relevant background to help it understand the task scenario. Without context, AI can only guess. With context, its answers will be more relevant. > I am a junior computer science student, preparing for interviews... > > > This is our company product introduction, target customers are small and medium business owners... > > > I want to write a science article for elementary school students, cannot use complex terminology... ### Output Format Requirements (How to present) Specify the format of AI's output: list, table, paragraph, code, JSON, etc. Clear format requirements save you time on reorganization. > Present in table format, with three columns: Step Name, Operation Instructions, Precautions. > > > Output JSON format, with three fields: 'id', 'name', 'description'. > > > Answer in three paragraphs, each no more than 100 characters. ### Examples (Give a reference) Give AI one or two examples to let it understand what kind of output you want. This is called Few-shot Learning, which means giving a few examples for it to learn from. > For example: > > > Input: happy, Output: overjoyed, delighted, thrilled > > > Now process: sad * * * ## Three Basic Prompt Types Depending on your purpose, prompts can be divided into three basic types. ### Question Type: Direct Questions Used for obtaining information, explaining concepts, seeking advice. This is the simplest prompt type, suitable for information query scenarios. > What is the difference between list and tuple in Python? > > > How to improve team communication efficiency? > > > What are the most worth learning front-end frameworks in 2026? When asking questions: the more specific, the better. Don't just ask: how to learn programming. Ask: I have zero foundation and want to do Web development. Should I learn HTML/CSS or JavaScript first? Please give me a 3-month learning plan. ### Instruction Type: Tell AI What to Do Used for completing specific tasks: writing, translation, code modification, data organization, etc. Instruction prompts need to be clear, specific, and executable. > Translate this text into English, maintaining the original humor. > > > Split this long paragraph into 5 small points, each with a subheading. > > > Help me optimize this code, add comments, and find possible bugs. ### Conversational Type: Multi-turn Exchange Not a one-time question, but continuous dialogue, gradually deepening. This method is suitable for complex tasks, you can adjust direction while chatting. > You: "I want to make a personal blog website, what technical solutions do you recommend? > > > AI: "Based on your needs, you can consider the following solutions:... > > > You: "I choose Hugo, how do I get started specifically? > > > AI: "Okay, the steps to build a blog with Hugo are as follows:... > > > You: "Wait, I don't want to use GitHub Pages, are there other free hosting solutions? The key to conversational prompts: remember that AI has context memory. You don't need to repeat previous content every time, just continue the conversation. * * * ## Role-Playing Prompts Set a role for AI, and its responses will be more professional and scenario-appropriate. This is the simplest but most effective technique. ### Why Role-Playing Works During training, AI has seen large amounts of text from different roles. When you tell it "you are a lawyer," it automatically adjusts tone, wording, and thinking mode to be more like a real lawyer. The same question, with different roles, will give completely different answers. For example, you ask: "How do I get more people to know about my product?" | Role Setting | Answer Focus | | --- | --- | | Marketing Expert | Brand positioning, channel selection, event planning | | Sales Director | Conversion funnel, customer follow-up, closing techniques | | Product Manager | Product selling points, user experience, differentiation | | Tech Lead | Technical implementation, performance optimization, data analysis | ### Common Role Templates Here are some common role settings you can directly use or modify as needed: > You are an experienced Python developer, skilled in code review and performance optimization. Please help me check this code... > > > You are a professional copywriter with 10 years of experience in the advertising industry. Please help me rewrite this product description... > > > You are my Japanese language tutor, with standard pronunciation, good at correcting beginners' mistakes. Please help me check the grammar of this dialogue... > > > You are a startup mentor who has successfully founded three technology companies. Please help me analyze this business plan... The more specific the role