Include details in your query to get more relevant answers
In order to get a highly relevant response, make sure that requests provide any important details or context. Otherwise you are leaving it up to the model to guess what you mean.
Tactic: Ask the model to adopt a persona
Based on internal evals, the gpt-4.5-preview model has a particular system message that results in better performance. Add your own system message contents after this:
SYSTEM
You are a highly capable, thoughtful, and precise assistant. Your goal is to deeply understand the user's intent, ask clarifying questions when needed, think step-by-step through complex problems, provide clear and accurate answers, and proactively anticipate helpful follow-up information. Always prioritize being truthful, nuanced, insightful, and efficient, tailoring your responses specifically to the user's needs and preferences.
Tactic: Use delimiters to clearly indicate distinct parts of the input
Delimiters like triple quotation marks, XML tags, section titles, etc. can help demarcate sections of text to be treated differently.
USER
Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes with a haiku.
"""insert text here"""
SYSTEM
You will be provided with a pair of articles (delimited with XML tags) about the same topic. First summarize the arguments of each article. Then indicate which of them makes a better argument and explain why.
USER
<article> insert first article here </article>
<article> insert second article here </article>
SYSTEM
You will be provided with a thesis abstract and a suggested title for it. The thesis title should give the reader a good idea of the topic of the thesis but should also be eye-catching. If the title does not meet these criteria, suggest 5 alternatives.
USER
Abstract: insert abstract here
Title: insert title here
For straightforward tasks such as these, using delimiters might not make a difference in the output quality. However, the more complex a task is the more important it is to disambiguate task details. Don’t make the model work to understand exactly what you are asking of them.
Tactic: Specify the steps required to complete a task
SYSTEM
Use the following step-by-step instructions to respond to user inputs.
Step 1 - The user will provide you with text in triple quotes. Summarize this text in one sentence with a prefix that says "Summary: ".
Step 2 - Translate the summary from Step 1 into Spanish, with a prefix that says "Translation: ".
USER
"""insert text here"""
Tactic: Provide examples
Providing general instructions that apply to all examples is generally more efficient than demonstrating all permutations of a task by example, but in some cases providing examples may be easier. For example, if you intend for the model to copy a particular style of responding to user queries which is difficult to describe explicitly. This is known as "few-shot" prompting.
SYSTEM
SYSTEM
Answer in a consistent style.
USER
Teach me about patience.
ASSISTANT
The river that carves the deepest valley flows from a modest spring; the grandest symphony originates from a single note; the most intricate tapestry begins with a solitary thread.
USER
Teach me about the ocean.
Tactic: Specify the desired length of the output
You can ask the model to produce outputs that are of a given target length. The targeted output length can be specified in terms of the count of words, sentences, paragraphs, bullet points, etc. Note however that instructing the model to generate a specific number of words does not work with high precision. The model can more reliably generate outputs with a specific number of paragraphs or bullet points.
USER
Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in about 50 words.
"""insert text here"""
USER
Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in 2 paragraphs.
"""insert text here"""
USER
Summarize the text delimited by triple quotes in 3 bullet points.
"""insert text here"""
Strategy: Provide reference text
If we can provide a model with trusted information that is relevant to the current query, then we can instruct the model to use the provided information to compose its answer.
SYSTEM
Use the provided articles delimited by triple quotes to answer questions. If the answer cannot be found in the articles, write "I could not find an answer."
USER
<insert articles, each delimited by triple quotes>
Question: <insert question here>
Tactic: Instruct the model to answer with citations from a reference text
If the input has been supplemented with relevant knowledge, it's straightforward to request that the model add citations to its answers by referencing passages from provided documents. Note that citations in the output can then be verified programmatically by string matching within the provided documents.
SYSTEM
You will be provided with a document delimited by triple quotes and a question. Your task is to answer the question using only the provided document and to cite the passage(s) of the document used to answer the question. If the document does not contain the information needed to answer this question then simply write: "Insufficient information." If an answer to the question is provided, it must be annotated with a citation. Use the following format for to cite relevant passages ({"citation": …}).
USER
"""<insert document here>"""
Question: <insert question here>
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