Writing good prompts is crucial for effective interaction with chatbots like Claude, a brilliant but new employee with amnesia. According to Anthropic’s guide, “Prompt Engineering Overview,” users need to be explicit and specific when making requests. Here are the top tips from Anthropic:
1. Be Specific: Explain what you want clearly, including the results, audience, and end goal of the task. Organize directions in bullet points or a numbered list for better clarity.
2. Generous with Examples: Provide well-crafted examples to improve accuracy, consistency, and quality. This technique is called multi-shot prompting and reduces misinterpretation.
3. Give Space to Think: Encourage the chatbot to think step-by-step by laying out chain of thought (CoT) prompts. This leads to more accurate and nuanced outputs.
4. Roleplay: Assign a specific role, like “news editor” or “financial planner,” to get exactly what you want.
5. Reduce Hallucinations: Explicitly give the chatbot permission to say “I don’t know” and ask for sources to cite claims. This reduces false information and improves accuracy.
By following these tips, users can master chatbot prompting and achieve better results with AI-powered tools like Claude.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-guide-prompt-engineering-2025-7