If you’ve started experimenting with AI features in DEVONthink, you’ve probably noticed that the results you get depend a lot on how you phrase your requests. Crafting a good prompt can make the difference between a helpful, focused response and a vague or off-topic answer. Here’s how you can create effective AI prompts.
A good prompt is clear, specific, and provides enough context for the AI to understand what you want. It’s tempting to ask simple but vague questions but you’ll get better results by clarifying things.
Consider these guidelines:
- Be specific: Instead of “Summarize,” try “Summarize the key points from the first three paragraphs in the selected document”.
- Add context: If you want a summary for a particular audience, mention it: “Summarize for a high school student…”.
- Set constraints: If you want a short answer, say so: “Summarize in one paragraph…”.
- Avoid ambiguity: Words like “it” or “they” can confuse the AI if it’s not clear what you’re referring to. As a habit, refer to “the selected document/image/etc.”.
- Be thorough: Creating a prompt with multiple sentences can be even more effective. Prompts don’t have to be presented one sentence at a time.
Instead of saying, “Explain this.” use, “Explain the main argument of the selected document in simple terms.” Don’t merely say, “Summarize”. Say, “Summarize the attached email in two sentences, focusing on the action items.” As you can see, even a little extra detail can make your prompt much more effective.
Also keep these tips in mind:
- If you don’t get the answer you want, try rephrasing. Sometimes a small change in wording makes a big difference.
- Remember, AI is helpful but not perfect so always review results for accuracy.
- And as we already wrote in our post Where to Find More About AI: You can find many more guides for prompting on the internet. Some are good and helpful, others less so.