Ch 4 · What Is a Prompt? · AI & LLM Literacy
Topic 4 of 7 in AI & LLMs — How They Actually Work — 2 lessons.
Instruction + Context + Question
A prompt is just the text you give the model. Good prompts almost always have three parts: an instruction, some context and a question. Keeping them distinct tells the model what role to play, which facts to rely on and what you actually want. In the example, make_prompt joins the three pieces into one block of text; check the output to see each part separated by a blank line.
Clearer Prompt, Better Answer
The model can only respond to what you give it. A vague prompt forces it to guess what you meant; a specific one points it straight at a useful answer. Compare two prompts by how much the model has to guess.