Part 2: The building blocks of a Prompt – What Goes Into a Good AI Instruction
Components of a good prompt. Image by Rajashree Rajadhyax This is the second article in the three-part series on prompt engineering. In the first part, we explored various prompting techniques—different ways you can instruct AI to generate responses. The article introduced some theoretical approaches to interacting with AI, highlighting how different techniques influence the kind of output you receive. You can read the first part [here]. In this part, we’ll shift our focus to the building blocks of a prompt—the essential elements that make up a clear, effective instruction. Let’s revisit what a prompt is At a basic level, a prompt is simply the way you tell AI what you expect from it. It’s your way of saying, “Hey, here’s what I need—please respond accordingly.” But while it may seem as simple as typing a question, what you say and how you say it can drastically influence the output you get. This is because AI models, like LLMs (Large Language Models), understand prompts by recognizing...