How to Ask AI a Question and Get an Answer You Can Use
Most disappointing answers from AI are caused by the question, not the tool. A useful instruction has four parts: the context it needs, the task you want done, the form you want it back in, and the limits it must respect. Give it those four and the quality changes immediately. You do not need special words, and you do not need to buy a prompt pack.
Why this matters
Almost everyone starts the same way. You type a short question, you get back something bland and slightly hollow, and you conclude that the tool is overrated, or worse, that you are not clever enough at it.
Neither is true. You asked a stranger a vague question and got a vague answer, which is exactly what a person would have given you. The fix is not cleverness. It is telling it enough to be useful.
The four parts of a useful instruction
Context. Who you are and what the situation is. "I am applying for an office coordinator role at a small clinic" produces something completely different from silence.
Task. The one thing you want done. Rewrite this. Explain this. Compare these two. Ask me questions. One task at a time works better than four.
Form. What you want back, and how much. Four sentences. A bulleted list. Plain language, no jargon. An email under 150 words.
Limits. What it must not do. Do not invent anything I have not told you. Do not use the word passionate. Keep it to what is on my résumé.
That last one is the part most people never think of, and it is the part that stops the tool making things up on your behalf.
A weak question, and the same question improved
Weak: Write me a cover letter.
What comes back is a template. It could belong to anyone, which means it belongs to no one.
Improved: I am applying for a part-time bookkeeping role at a small veterinary practice. I did bookkeeping for a family business for six years, and I have been out of paid work since 2019 caring for my mother. Write a cover letter of about 200 words, in plain language, warm but not gushing. Do not claim any qualification I have not mentioned, and do not use the word passionate.
Same tool, one minute of extra typing, an answer you can actually use.
Ask it to fix the draft, do not start over
This is the habit that changes everything, and almost nobody is taught it.
When the answer is not right, you do not need a new prompt. Tell it what is wrong.
Too long. Cut it to half.
Too formal. Say it the way I would say it out loud.
The second paragraph is not true. Take it out.
Keep the first line, rewrite the rest.
Three or four rounds of that will get you somewhere a perfect first prompt never would. Think of it as editing rather than ordering.
Five prompts you can copy
Explain something without jargon.
Explain [term or phrase] to me as though I am intelligent but completely new to it. No jargon. Give me one real example.
Turn duties into achievements.
Here is a list of things I did in my last role: [paste]. Rewrite each one as a short achievement line for a résumé. Do not exaggerate and do not add numbers I have not given you.
Soften or sharpen an email.
Here is an email I have drafted: [paste]. Rewrite it to sound [warmer / firmer / shorter]. Keep my meaning exactly. Under 120 words.
Prepare for an interview.
Here is the job advert: [paste]. Here is my background: [paste]. Ask me five likely interview questions, one at a time, and wait for my answer before asking the next.
Get unstuck.
I need to [task] and I do not know where to start. Ask me three questions that would help you help me, then give me the first step only.
Try this now
Take one thing you have been putting off writing. An email, a message, a paragraph about yourself.
Do not ask AI to write it. Instead, paste this:
I need to write [what it is] for [who it is for]. Ask me four questions about it, one at a time, and wait for my answer before asking the next. Then write a first draft in plain language, using only what I have told you.
Answering four questions is easier than facing a blank page, and the draft that comes back will be yours because the substance came from you.
Common questions
Do I need to say please and thank you?
No, it makes no difference to the answer. Say it if you would rather. Plenty of us do.
How long should a prompt be?
Long enough to include the four parts. Two or three sentences covers most things. There is no prize for brevity here.
Why does everything it writes sound like a brochure?
Because it defaults to that. Tell it not to. Ask for plain language, short sentences, no marketing words, and give it a sample of your own writing to copy if you have one.
Should I buy one of those prompt packs?
Not yet, and probably not at all. Once you understand the four parts you can write your own for any situation, which is more useful than a hundred prompts written for someone else's job.
What if the answer is wrong?
Assume it might be. Anything factual, anything with a number in it, anything you would put your name to in front of an employer, check yourself.
Your next step
Start here if you would like something to work through: the free guide, AI Made Simple: The Gentle Start
https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/free-guide
New to this? Start with Guide 1: What Can AI Actually Do for Someone Going Back to Work?
https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/guides/what-can-ai-do-going-back-to-work
Learn with WLOL: AI Made Simple, $27. The foundation course. What AI can do, how to talk to it, and how to use it in everyday life and work.
https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/ai-made-simple
More guides: https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/guides
Continue the journey. Read Guide 3: Can AI help me change careers in my fifties?
https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/guides/can-ai-help-me-change-careers-in-my-fifties
About Louella and Winning Lifestyles Online
I am Louella. I teach AI to women who are changing direction in their working lives, whether that is going back to work, repositioning, or watching their field change underneath them.
I started learning this in January 2023, when a company I was involved with announced they were shelving finished programs and going back to the drawing board because of AI. I decided to understand it rather than wait and see. It changed the direction of my work.
I went to ChatGPT, because it was the one everybody was talking about. I typed in the prompts I had read about somewhere, the way you copy a recipe before you understand the cooking, and it was a good while before I worked out how to use it in a way that actually suited me.
I test these tools myself and report back honestly, including when the answer is that something is not worth your money yet. That is what I write about each month in The AI Lightkeeper, and it is what the courses at Winning Lifestyles Online are built on.
Start here: the free guide, AI Made Simple: The Gentle Start
https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/free-guide
More from WLOL:
Home: https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/
The AI Learning Hub: https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/ai-learning-hub
The AI Lightkeeper: https://www.winninglifestylesonline.com/ai-lightkeeper