Prompting for work and study
Everyday prompts: emails, reports and study notes
Four jobs AI does well when you give it your own material: rewrite, summarise, reply and explain.
Give it your material, not a blank page
A chatbot works best when it starts from something you wrote or supplied: a draft to tighten, a text to summarise, a customer message to answer.
Never paste private data. Our lesson on what never to paste explains why.
Four patterns to copy
Rewrite: "Rewrite this email to be shorter and more polite. Keep every date and number the same."
Summarise: "Summarise this in 5 bullets for a busy manager. Mark anything you are unsure about."
Reply: "Draft a reply to this customer message. Apologise once, give one next step, no promises about dates."
Explain: "Explain this topic to a first-year student with two examples, then give me three questions to test myself."
Try it
Try one on your own work
Rewrite this email to be shorter and more polite. Keep every date and number the same.
- Paste an email you wrote this week, with names and private details removed.
- Read the result against the original line by line.
- Check that every date, amount and name is unchanged.
What to look for: Rewrites sometimes change a number or a date without telling you. The check is yours, always.
Check yourself
You ask a chatbot to shorten a letter that includes a payment deadline. What must you check afterwards?
Show the answer
That the deadline, the amount and every name are exactly as in your original.
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