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CashPlanetAcademy

16 min · Free

Prompting for real work

Briefs, constraints, and examples that look like the work you already do.

A useful prompt is a brief. It has a job, an audience, a constraint, and an example of “good”.

Job: Rewrite this WhatsApp voice-note transcript into a supplier message.
Audience: a hardware stall in Kumasi that already knows me.
Constraint: 80 words, no slang I would not say aloud, keep the order quantities.
Good: short greeting, the list, when I will collect, one question.
Transcript: …

That is better than “make this professional”.

Patterns that travel

  1. Paste the raw material. Do not ask the model to remember a conversation from last week unless the product actually stores it.
  2. Name the format. Table, three bullets, subject line plus body.
  3. Name what to leave out. “Do not invent a discount.” “Do not add a US phone number.”
  4. Ask for uncertainty. “If a price is missing, write UNKNOWN.”

Language

You can brief in English, French, Portuguese, Swahili, or a mix. Say which language the output must use. If you need Twi or isiZulu that you will send to a customer, read every line. Models are uneven on languages they see less often.