Talking to AI: the beginner's guide to prompting

A “prompt” is simply the request you write to an AI. The quality of the answer depends heavily on how you phrase it. Good news: a few habits are enough to improve fast.

The 3 C rule

To frame any request, think of three things:

• Context : who you are, for whom, for what goal. “I run a small shop, writing to my customers.”
• Command : the exact task. “Write an announcement about our summer hours.”
• Constraint : the expected format. “Warm tone, 4 lines max, no emoji.”

A request with these three almost always gives a far better result.

Common mistakes

• Too vague: “Write something nice.” → the AI guesses, and often guesses wrong.
• Asking everything at once: better to go step by step and refine.
• No example: if you have a style in mind, show a model.

5 before / after examples

1. ❌ “Make me a CV.” → ✅ “Write a CV for a sales role from this info: […]. Energetic tone, one page.”
2. ❌ “Summarize this.” → ✅ “Summarize this text into 5 key points for someone in a hurry.”
3. ❌ “Translate.” → ✅ “Translate to French, professional register, for a client email.”
4. ❌ “Give ideas.” → ✅ “Give 10 short, concrete post ideas for a bakery.”
5. ❌ “Fix my text.” → ✅ “Fix spelling and tighten the sentences, without changing the meaning.”

The habit that changes everything

If the answer isn’t right, don’t start over: just tell the AI what’s off. “Shorter”, “more formal”, “add an example”. The dialogue is the real key.