Prompting AI for effective communication
Bron Eager · 2024
The art of prompt engineering – designing effective instructional commands to elicit useful AI responses – forms the core focus of this chapter. Multiple examples, grounded in academic contexts, are provided to illustrate the key components of quality prompts, including clear instructions, contextual framing, illustrative samples, creative constraints, conversational tone, sentiment expression, and continuity associations. Tailored variations demonstrate adaptations across diverse scholarly tasks. The iterative nature of prompt refinement is emphasised, along with several practice-based strategies for improving prompt-writing effectiveness. A hands-on activity and reflective exercises encourage readers to cultivate their prompt engineering expertise. Overall, the focus of this chapter is on the skill of prompt writing, which is cultivated throughout to move towards enabling academics to craft prompts that are more controlled, aligned, and productive for achieving academic tasks with the assistance of AI tools, specifically AI chatbots, empowering scholars to leverage these tools effectively in their research and writing workflows.