AI School › Talking to AI · Lesson 32 of 130

🎯 Why being specific changes everything

Precise words are arrows that hit the centre; vague ones get lost in the wind.

Think of a friend asking you to pass "that thing" while pointing at a drawer full of objects. What do they want? Scissors? Glue? A ruler? You have to guess. But if they say "pass me the blue scissors with rounded tips", you hand it over in a second. AI thinks the same way: when your request is specific, it doesn't have to guess and gives you the right thing at once. Adding details isn't being fussy: it's switching on a torch in a dark room.

A concrete example: asking "write me a story" can give you anything. Asking "write me a 200-word story about a shy dragon afraid to fly, with a happy ending" gives you almost what you pictured. The useful details are usually four: the topic, the length, the style and the audience. Every time you write a request, check if you included these ingredients. Like in cooking, if one ingredient is missing the dish comes out different from what you wanted.

🎒 Try it in class (or at home)

Take a vague request like "help me with homework" and rewrite it adding the subject, the exact topic and what you want to achieve.

← Lesson 31: How do you write a good request? · Lesson 33: Giving the AI a role →

📱 Download the Android app (beta) iOS coming soon

Say what you mean. Get what you need.

Grace Certified, the AI coach that trains and certifies your prompt engineering, by Agora Intelligence.