Figuring Out The Best AI Prompts 🪄

AI tools are a huge debate currently. No matter what someone thinks about whether AI is harmful or helpful, it is a commonly used tool and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. This week was interesting because it made me think more intentionally about how we can use AI tools, especially when it comes to prompting. In the times I have used AI, I don't put too much thought into it and just go with a basic question. I thought it would be better to just ask something simple and then see what came back. After working through our class assignment this week however, it shows how important it is to thoughtfully write out your prompt. Your prompt can have a huge impact on the quality of the AI response. 

For this activity, I used Arena.ai. With this chatbot, you can select different chatbot models and have side by side responses and pick the one you like more. Below is an image of some of the ones that you can pick from. You can even search models as well if you are familiar with specific chatbots. 

I used the ChatGPT 5.4 chatbot and the Claude 4-6 for my prompts. What I noticed right away was if my prompts were more general, the response would be general as well. Usually it wasn't very helpful. When I added more details to my prompt however, the results started improving a lot. I added things like the purpose of what I was asking, certain tones I wanted, and the type of response I was looking for. This made me feel like prompts are better when you give certain directions rather than asking basic questions. 

For the goal of my prompt, I wanted to make it school related. My original idea was to have the prompt help with writing a short paper. I brainstormed some of my ideas because I was having a hard time getting started, and I wanted a clear topic for my prompt. This was useful because it saved time overthinking about a topic and what would be the best one, and it also made the writing process less overwhelming. I decided on the topic and question, "Does AI have a positive or negative effect on current college students?"

To find my find prompt, I had to keep trying different versions of my question. If you ask just a simple question the response will be very broad. I tried adding more specific instructions such as asking for a natural tone. AI responses can sound, well, like AI. Asking for a more natural tone helped with that. I also asked it to focus on a reflection of the question, instead of just summarizing a bunch of information on the topic. When I included things like the context, the type of assignment, and the tone, it helped improve the response each time. Even small changes in your original wording can make a big difference in the results.

The final version of my prompt:

“Help me write a short paper for a college graduate level class based on the question, "Does AI have a positive or negative effect on current college students?". Keep the tone natural, thoughtful, and slightly casual, not overly formal or robotic. Make the response clear and well organized, around 250 words. Focus on reflection and explaining ideas rather than just summarizing.”

Doing this assignment this week helped me understand that prompting is a big part of using AI. It takes some practice to get it perfect. Being more specific and intentional can improve the responses and make it more of a useful tool for you to use. One of the main things I liked was brainstorming topic ideas, it saved a lot of time and stress if you are an overthinker like myself. 

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