Lesson 2: Clear vs vague — say exactly what you want
"Help me with this" leaves the model to guess what "this" is and what we even wanted. A clear prompt says exactly what to do, for whom, and to what end — and swaps vague words like "this" and "something" for explicit ones. In this lesson we practice turning a vague request into a clear one, without
Ask "help me with this email" and the model doesn't know to whom, about what, or in what tone. Ask "write a short, polite email to my landlord to fix the heating by Friday" and it knows exactly what to write.
- clarity
- How precisely the prompt states the task, who it is for, and the goal — without leaving things to guesswork.
- vague prompt
- A fuzzy request like "help me with this" that doesn't say what to actually do, so it returns an off-target reply.
- explicit instruction
- Wording that replaces hinting words like "this" and "something" with clear words stating exactly what the model should do.
