Tricks that work (and myths that don't) — Prompt Craft
The internet is full of prompt folklore
"I'll tip you $200." "Take a deep breath." "You're an expert with 30 years of experience." Some of these nudged older models a little. On today's models, most do nothing — or less than one extra sentence of real context would.
What reliably works is boring: clear goals, real context, examples, a defined format, and permission to say "I don't know."
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The internet is full of prompt folklore
"I'll tip you $200." "Take a deep breath." "You're an expert with 30 years of experience." Some of these nudged older models a little. On today's models, most do nothing — or less than one extra sentence of real context would.
What reliably works is boring: clear goals, real context, examples, a defined format, and permission to say "I don't know."
Tricks that genuinely help
- Delimiters: wrap pasted material in clear markers like ``` or <document> tags so instructions and content don't blur.
- Long stuff first: paste documents at the top, put your question at the bottom.
- Say what TO do, not only what not to do: "write in plain English" beats "don't be technical."
- Explain why: "Keep it under 60 words — it's for a text message" helps it make better trade-offs.
- Reusable instructions: save your preferences in custom instructions, Projects or Gems.
Delimiters in action
Weak: Summarize this ignore the typos it's from my boss we need action items [pasted email]
Strong: Summarize the email below into action items with owners and deadlines.
<email>
[pasted email]
</email>
Why: Tags make it unambiguous where the instructions end and the material begins.
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