You will be able to explain why vague requests get generic answers and name the four parts of a complete request.
Imagine handing a new colleague a sticky note that says: write an email about the price increase. They have never met your clients. They do not know how big the increase is, when it starts, or whether your clients are the kind who will call your boss. They would come back with something polite, vague and useless, and it would not be their fault.
That is what most people do with an AI assistant. They type a line, get back something generic, and conclude the tool is overrated. The model did the reasonable thing with what it was given. With no information about the reader or the purpose, it produced the most average version of the email it could, because average is the safest guess.
An assistant knows a great deal about language and the world in general. It knows nothing about your situation unless you put it in the message. Everything it uses to answer you sits in the text in front of it: your words, any files you attach, the earlier conversation, and any standing instructions you have set. That is why most of this course is about briefing.
A complete request has four parts. Context is the background: who you are, who the output is for, why it is needed and any facts the model cannot know. The task is what you want done, ideally one clear verb with an object, such as draft, summarise, compare or critique. Constraints are the limits, such as length, tone, what to avoid and what not to guess. Format is the shape of the output: a table with named columns, a subject line and three short paragraphs, or numbered steps.
Here is the sticky note again, rewritten. I run a small corporate catering business in Singapore. Draft an email to our regular office clients telling them our per-head price will rise by 8 percent from 1 March because of higher ingredient and delivery costs. Most of them have ordered from us for over two years and are on friendly terms with us. Keep it under 150 words, warm but direct, with no apology in the first line. Give me a subject line and the email body, and do not add a discount offer.
That took about a minute to write. The draft that comes back will need light edits instead of a rewrite, and you will spend less total time than you would have with the one-line version plus all the fixing.
Notice what the rewrite does not include. It does not tell the model to act as a famous copywriter or use any special phrases, because no magic wording exists. The improvement comes from information the model could not have guessed: who the clients are, what changed, why, and what a good email looks like to you.
Notice also what it leaves out on purpose. It names no client and includes no contract details. Good context means what the task needs. Everything else you know can stay out. Later in the course you will see where the line sits and why your company's rules matter.
A quick test before you send any request: could a capable new colleague do the job from your message alone, without asking you a question? If not, add what they would ask for. If the request runs long, that is fine. A long, clear brief usually beats a short one followed by five rounds of correction.
Your task for this lesson: take a prompt you actually used this week, ideally one whose answer disappointed you, and rewrite it with all four parts. Run both versions in the same assistant, in fresh chats, and write down three differences in what came back. Keep both versions, because you will use them again in the lesson exercise.
Take a prompt you used this week, rewrite it with all four parts, run both versions, and note three differences in what came back.
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