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Library - Mastering Generative AI: Essential skills for the digital age: Prompt crafting

This course on Generative AI Literacy is designed to equip you with the foundational knowledge and practical skills needed to navigate the AI-driven landscape.

Begin with the first step and proceed through to the final step.

Meet Lettie, a first-year student. Lettie has to write an argumentative essay on The Key Components of Effective Essay Structure. Lettie is just starting to use AI for her essay. Lettie is a bit unsure about how to get the best help from the AI. Here’s how Lettie learns to use prompt literacy to craft a great essay:

STEP 6: Prompt crafting

Download the PDF file with all the examples of prompt crafting.

Tip

Design by Elize Du Toit
Design by Elize Du Toit

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STEP 1: Start simple

Lettie begins by asking, “What should I know about essay writing?” 

The AI gives a broad answer, but it’s not as helpful as Lettie hoped. Lettie learns that to get better help, the questions need to be more specific.

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STEP 3: Adding details

To get even better advice, Lettie learns to add extra details to her questions. Lettie asks, “How can I make my essay more interesting for my classmates?” By adding this extra detail, Lettie gets suggestions on how to engage readers, like using real-life examples and creating a catchy introduction.

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STEP 5: End result

Through this journey, Lettie discovers that prompt literacy is all about asking the right questions and giving the AI enough details to help out effectively. With these skills, Lettie’s essay becomes well-organised, engaging, and informative. So, as you start using generative AI for your essays, remember: the key to great answers is crafting clear, specific prompts. This way, your AI assistant can guide you to write a fantastic essay with confidence!

STEP 2: Refining prompts

Lettie decides to ask a more detailed question: “What are the important steps to structure an argumentative essay for first-year students?” This time, the AI gives useful tips on how to organise ideas, create strong arguments, and keep the essay clear and logical.

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Promp Crafting Refine

STEP 4: Practice and improve

Lettie practices asking different kinds of questions and learns that the more specific and clear the questions are, the better the answers will be. For instance, if Lettie needs help with a thesis statement, she might ask, “Can you give me examples of strong thesis statements for an argumentative essay?”

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STEP 6: How can the library help you?

When you suffer from information overload, information overload,  learning how to effectively search for information and knowing what to do with the information is a crucial skill to master. Applying proper search strategies will not only help you find the best information, but also saves you time.

Now that AI has helped brainstorm some aspects of the topic, you need to find reliable academic sources. This is where library search techniques come into play