What is a Prompt?

Learn the answer and enjoy on-target content generation.

A prompt is a set of text instructions that you give to an AI, like ChatGPT. The instructions can be simple or detailed. They can be a sentence or a question.

What is a prompt?>

What is a prompt? #

Prompt Examples>

Prompt Examples #

Here are two examples.

I entered this question prompt into the ChatGPT input field:

What is a ChatGPT prompt?

The response was detailed and a bit long.

Screenshot of a ChatGPT response to the question what is a prompt?

I asked ChatGPT to shorten the answer (a very cool AIPRM feature). Here is the response.

Screenshot of a shorter ChatGPT response

Understanding prompt templates>

Understanding prompt templates #

The ChatGPT answer is okay, but it doesn’t say anything about templates, the driving force behind truly amazing (and useful) prompt outputs.

Templates are basically a collection of fields that quickly and easily inject detailed information into an AI model – in addition to the statement or question you type into the text input field. Templates can be saved, so you can use them again and again.

Template fields can contain just about anything you want, including:

context
background information
constraints
references to third party information
variables

FYI The demand for prompt templates that generate high quality text outputs popularized a job description: prompt engineer. That demand also created an opportunity for AIPRM, a prompt engineering tool for non-engineers.

Sample template>

Sample template #

Here is a sample template from a popular AIPRM prompt - Human Written 100% Unique SEO Optimized Article (used more than 7.9 million times). The first field is long and contains detailed instructions for the AI. Luckily, you never have to write instructions like these - somebody did it already. Because it is a public prompt, you can use this template whenever you want on the AIPRM platform.

The prompt engineer who created this template also used the Topic and Activity fields to give the AI more information about the desired quality of the text output.

FYI AIPRM paid plans give you access to the same Topic and Activity filters.

Wrap up>

Wrap up #

That’s it. Now you know that effective prompts use a combination of user-generated text inputs plus reusable templates to give the AI detailed instructions, context, constraints, and variables.