MEPX
Chapter 3 of 10All chapters
  1. 1What a prompt is doing
  2. 2Giving context
  3. 3Examples
  4. 4Multi-step problems
  5. 5Controlling format
  6. 6Roles and personas
  7. 7Iterating
  8. 8Evaluating prompts
  9. 9Prompt injection
  10. 10Folklore and limits

Chapter 3 of 10

Examples

Show rather than describe.

Few-shot prompting

Two or three examples of input and desired output communicate tone, structure and edge case handling more precisely than any description.

  • Make examples representative, including a tricky case.
  • Inconsistent examples teach inconsistency.

Counter-examples

Showing what you do not want, labelled clearly as such, helps when a model keeps drifting towards a particular style.