Key principles for creating an effective prompt

5. Provide additional context

Providing more information helps the AI tool better understand your needs and tailor its response to your goal. Context guides how the tool generates content and increases the likelihood that the result will be relevant, clear, and usable.

What can you include in context?

• Purpose – Why do you need the response (e.g., for teaching, a presentation, or research)?

• Audience – Who is the content intended for (students, teachers, or a professional audience)?

• Writing style – What tone and language do you want (e.g., professional, popular, concise, or informal)?

• Response format – What form do you want the result in (e.g., list, table, essay, or plan)?

Why is this important?

Without a clearly defined context, the AI may assume circumstances that do not match your expectations.

Context helps the system “understand” your intent and generate a response tailored to the situation, audience, and purpose.

Example:

“Write a summary of a scientific article on digital pedagogy, tailored to first-year students.”

In this example, the context includes the type of content (summary), the topic (digital pedagogy), and the audience (first-year students). With this information, the AI tool can create a response appropriate to the audience’s knowledge level and focused on the educational goal.

Tip: The more relevant information you include in your query, the more precisely the AI tool will “understand” what you need. A well-defined context does not limit the model’s creativity; on the contrary, it helps it be more focused and useful.

Questions to consider:

1. Can you recall a situation when you received an irrelevant response from an AI tool? What part of the context might have been missing?

2. How would you reframe your most frequently used query to include clearer context (purpose, audience, style, or form)?