The five habits of good prompts
- Say what you need. "Summarize this report for a client" beats "summarize".
- Give context. Who is the audience? What are you making? What must be true?
- Set the format. "Give me a table", "a bullet list", "an email under 150 words".
- Show one good example. Few-shot beats description every time.
- Ask for a check. "List any claims you are not certain about."
Weak: "Tell me about concrete." Strong: "List the top 5 sustainability trade-offs of exposed concrete vs mass timber for a 6-storey office in Mumbai, as a table with a one-line source for each."
Prompt patterns that scale
Pattern | Idea | Example Role + task | Give the AI a job title and a goal | "You are a structural engineer. Review this connection detail." Constraints | Bound the answer | "Under 200 words, no marketing language." Chain of thought | Ask it to reason step by step | "Work through the calculation, then give the answer." Iterate | Refine, don't restart | "Good — now shorten it and make it more formal." Verify | Ask for sources and uncertainty | "Cite the standard you used and flag anything uncertain."