Prompting for beginners: break up multi-part prompts

If you’re asking Toqan to do more than one thing, it will sometimes try to choose which request to prioritise. Try to break down your prompts when you’re asking it to do more than one thing.

You can do this with ## or tell it to follow a step-by-step instruction list, or simply use the word “then”.

Consider the difference here:
Option 1: Transcribe and translate this file and create a short summary to share with my colleagues.
Option 2: Transcribe this file. Then translate it to English. Then create a short summary that I can share with my colleagues.

The example here is rather basic but you may still benefit from breaking it up in one prompt.

However, if your instruction is quite complex, rather complete one instruction/question then wait for a response. Then move on to your second question/instruction and wait for a response. And so on and so on.

Consider this prompt as an example.
Give me ideas for an event related to promoting AI use. What topics should we cover? Which speakers should we get and what kind of budget should I have? And what other interesting things can I add?

The quality of the output would not be great if you asked Toqan to respond in one go. It will likely give you a very high-level, superficial answer. But if you asked each question separately, you’d likely get rich, detailed answers that would be more valuable. Break it down like this:

1. Give me ideas for an event related to promoting AI use.
2. What topics should we cover?
3. Which speakers should we get?
4. And what kind of budget should I have?
5. And what other interesting things can I add?

This is not always easy to figure out, though, so be patient if you don’t get the exact outcome you wanted the first time around. Take note of the prompts that work well for you and which ones don’t. See if you can identify a pattern for the ones that work then follow that pattern with future prompts.