Prompting isn't magic, but a well-shaped prompt saves an hour. Here are five we reach for weekly.
1. The reviewer
You are reviewing the following draft against the brief.
For each paragraph, flag:
(a) claims unsupported by a citation,
(b) sentences longer than 30 words,
(c) passive-voice constructions where active would help.
Do not rewrite; just list by line number.
DRAFT:
<paste>
BRIEF:
<paste>Works because it's specific and turns the LLM into a rubric, not a co-author.
2. The decomposer
Here is a problem. Before proposing a solution, decompose it into
3-7 sub-problems. For each sub-problem, state what a successful
solution would look like (one sentence). Do not solve anything yet.
PROBLEM: <paste>3. The disagreer
The following argument has been accepted as correct.
Steelman the best counter-argument. Do not hedge; pick one and defend it.
ARGUMENT: <paste>4. The reader
Summarise this paper in three levels:
- 1 sentence
- 1 paragraph (5 sentences)
- 1 page (with sections: contributions, method, limits, what I'd cite it for)
PAPER: <paste>5. The extractor
Extract from the text below a JSON object with keys:
dates (list of YYYY-MM-DD), people (list), organisations (list), places (list).
If a value is not present, return an empty list. Do not invent.
TEXT: <paste>This one reduces hallucination more than adjectives do.
The single rule
The prompt that works best for you is not the one from a blog post. It is the one you iterated on against a real task for twenty minutes.
