Prompt Basics — AI Basics
Prompt well. Get more.
Three short lessons on how to ask AI for what you actually need.
Most people open ChatGPT or Claude, type a vague question, get a generic answer, and quietly decide AI is overrated. The problem is not the AI. It is the asking. These three lessons fix that.
Start with Lesson 1Why prompting is a skill
AI does not read your mind. It reads your words. The shape of your question shapes the answer. A vague question gets a vague answer. A specific question gets a useful one.
Prompting is the new typing. Not in the sense that it is hard, but in the sense that it is a learnable skill that quietly compounds. Five minutes of better prompting can save an hour of editing what the AI gave back.
These three lessons are the smallest set that actually moves the needle. Read them in order. Try the prompts. Notice the difference.
The three lessons
About 5 minutes each. Read in order.
- 1
How to ask
Tell the AI five things and you get a useful answer.
A clear prompt has five parts: who you are, what you want, for whom, what good looks like, and what to avoid. This lesson walks through each one with a worked example.
Read the lesson →
- 2
How to refine
The first answer is almost never the right answer.
Three refining moves cover most of what you need: make it shorter, make it more specific, show me three versions. This lesson shows them in action.
Read the lesson →
- 3
When AI is the wrong tool
AI is good at structure and language. It is bad at facts, recent events, and your specific reality.
Four situations where AI is the wrong tool and another would be faster, safer, or more honest. This lesson is short and direct.
Read the lesson →
Want a shortcut?
If you want to practise English with AI and skip writing the prompt yourself, the Master Prompt Builder writes one for you. Pick your situation, copy the prompt, paste it into ChatGPT or Claude.
Open the Master Prompt Builder →The Builder is a worked example of these three lessons. Use it, then come back and read the lessons — it will land harder when you have seen the pattern in action.