My junior college teacher told our class at ACJC these wise words over 30 years ago: “Minimum effort. Maximum returns.” She wasn’t asking us to offload our thinking, but to find the fastest possible routes to the best results. I have applied this mindset to many things, including writing AI prompts.
When writing prompts, there’s no need to:
- Ask nicely.
- Write complete sentences.
- Use unnecessary words.
Instead, you should:
4. Be precise.
5. Be intentional.
6. Omit all unnecessary words and information.
This is how good writers write. It’s how I teach media writing at NTU. And it’s how you should prompt AI to save time and energy.
There’s nothing wrong with writing long, verbose prompts, but what if you can get exactly the same results with a shorter prompt? This is why great communicators have a major advantage in using AI… but that’s assuming these communicators also have strong domain knowledge and data literacy.