December 1, 2024

How to: Get started with prompts for text-based generative AI tools. 

By Olivia Morris 

Many students are using AI. It is becoming popular now. This guide will explain to you the output of AI and how it is used with the prompts you enter. It emphasizes using descriptive prompts to get the prompts you want. This guide will also tell you to to be cautious of AI-generated content as it can sometimes be misleading or inaccurate and sometimes you can’t rely on it. The article How Generative AI Is Changing College Classes by the College of Berklee explains the educational opportunities of new AI tools and how professors are using it as a learning technique in what they described as a flipped classroom approach for students.

  1. Act as if – asking AI to behave as if you are a type of person, process can help you generate better images. For example, if you wanted to ask AI to make simple vegan cookies with the ingredients that you already have in your home because you don’t feel like going to the store, you will get a general list. But if you were to act as if you were a vegan food specialist you would get more options because AI considered the context of your response with better direction to go in.
  1. Tell AI how you want your information to be presented – Sometimes AI can produce many different out such as summaries, stories or business writing. Being more specific about what you want in a prompt will give you better results. You can try adding present this in the form of to see what AI can come up with.
  1. Use do and don’t – telling AI what you do and don’t want can save a lot of time and can improve your results.
  1. Use examples-  use an example of a sentence or sentence that you’d like your output to say and use that as an example so that AI can generate it for you.
  1. Consider tone and audience – give AI specifics about who your audience is. The more specific you are the better your output will be. 
  1. Build on the previous prompt – You don’t have to get everything right on the first try. Add to your original question that you had the first time by changing the wording.
  1. Ask AI to create prompts for you if you are stuck – Ask AI to create one for you, start with the basic idea of what you want and ask AI to provide an example for you. For example, you can ask what other ingredients should I put in my pasta. 

Here is an example of AI image using my own personal Canva account as a demonstration canva 

Now you are all ready to generate your AI work with my tips

#AItips #artificialintelligence #socialmedia

My LinkedIn

2 thoughts on “How to: Get started with prompts for text-based generative AI tools. 

  1. Hi Olivia, great work. I found your blog super helpful and based on such a creative topic. I think that we’re all finding different ways to adjust to the prevalence of AI in our work and educational lives so tips and tricks like this are incredibly helpful. I really appreciated the “use examples” section as its such an easy yet helpful tip when working with AI. I’ll definitely be using some of these tricks in the future!

  2. Olivia, great blog! I like how you incorporated your own example of asking Canva’s AI to generate an image based on your prompts. Something that stood out to me was how your guide specified telling AI what to do and don’t do. I get so caught up adjusting my prompts of telling AI what to do, it hadn’t occurred to me that I should prompt it on what not to do as well. Good job!

Comments are closed.