General Tips
Start Simple
You can start with simple prompts and keep adding more elements and context as you aim for better results. Iterating your prompt along the way is vital for this reason.
When you have a big task that involves many different subtasks, you can try to break down the task into simpler subtasks and keep building up as you get better results. This avoids adding too much complexity to the prompt design process at the beginning.
The Instruction
You can design effective prompts for various simple tasks by using commands to instruct the model what you want to achieve, such as "Write", "Classify", "Summarize", "Translate", "Order", etc.
Keep in mind that you also need to experiment a lot to see what works best. Try different instructions with different keywords, contexts, and data and see what works best for your particular use case and task.
Prompt
### Instruction ###
Translate the text below to Spanish:
Text: "hello!"
Result
¡Hola!
Specificity
Be very specific about the instruction and task you want the model to perform. The more descriptive and detailed the prompt is, the better the results. This is particularly important when you have a desired outcome or style of generation you are seeking. There aren't specific tokens or keywords that lead to better results. It's more important to have a good format and descriptive prompt. In fact, providing examples in the prompt is very effective to get desired output in specific formats.
Prompt
Extract the name of places in the following text. Desired format: Place: <comma_separated_list_of_places> Input: "Although these developments are encouraging to researchers, much is still
a mystery. “We often have a black box between the brain and the effect we see in
the periphery,” says Henrique Veiga-Fernandes, a neuroimmunologist at the
Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon. “If we want to use it in the
therapeutic context, we actually need to understand the mechanism.“"
Response
Place: Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon
Avoid Impreciseness
Given the tips above about being detailed and improving format, it's easy to fall into the trap of wanting to be too clever about prompts and potentially creating imprecise descriptions. It's often better to be specific and direct. The analogy here is very similar to effective communication -- the more direct, the more effective the message gets across.
For example, you might be interested in learning the concept of prompt engineering. You might try something like:
Explain the concept prompt engineering. Keep the explanation short, only a few
sentences, and don't be too descriptive.
It's not clear from the prompt above how many sentences to use or what style to use. You might still get somewhat good responses with the above prompts, but a better prompt would be very specific, concise, and to the point. Something like:
Use 2-3 sentences to explain the concept of prompt engineering to a high school
student.