Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools and Resources

Prompts are your input into the AI system to obtain specific results. A prompt can be a question, request, or topic you pose, consisting of a few words, a single sentence or even paragraphs.

In other words, a prompt instructs AI on what you want it to do.

The quality and relevance of the generated output and the user's satisfaction with the answer are influenced by how effectively your prompt is crafted. Providing as much instruction and context as possible to an AI tool like ChatGPT will bring back a more helpful or useful output to the task you've asked.

A search engine such as Google or Bing works by finding, organizing, and ranking web sources. Search engines retrieve and rank relevant sources by matching the keywords in a search query to the keywords in a webpage.

A research database such as Academic Search Ultimate or ProQuest One Academic provides a collection of pre-selected, high-quality sources, such as journal articles, often organized around a specific subject area. Like search engines, research databases retrieve relevant sources by matching them to keywords in a search query.

An AI text generator creates new content based upon predicting word sequences in response to a prompt.

*Note: Some tools like MIcrosoft CoPilot integrate typical search engine results with generative text responses that contain notes indicating web sources upon which the information is based.

When crafting prompts, it's helpful to provide context, be as specific as possible, and then revise or build on your initial prompt since you may not get a perfect response or output on the first try.

AI responds best to rich and specific prompts: Provide context AND add enough details to get to the core of the task you want it to complete. 

Example

Tell me about telehealth vs. Discuss the role of telehealth in treating substance use disorders.

"Tell me about telehealth" is too broad and may return more information than you need.

"Discuss the role of telehealth in treating substance use disorders" provides context and asks for a specific task that will get more at the heart of your information needs.

Key principles for prompts:

• Clarity: A clear and concise prompt will help ensure that the ChatGPT understands the topic or task and can generate an appropriate response. Avoid overly complex or ambiguous language; aim to be as specific as possible in your prompts.
• Focus: A well-defined prompt should have a clear purpose and focus, helping to guide the conversation and keep it on track. Avoid using overly broad or open-ended prompts, which can lead to disjointed or unfocused conversations.
• Relevance: Make sure your prompts are relevant to the user and the conversation. Avoid introducing unrelated topics or tangents that can distract from the main focus of the conversation.
• Context: Providing context or background information helps the tool to grasp the nuance of the request and may generate a better response.

Adapted from Mascellino, A. (2 September 2023). How to Write AI Prompts: ChatGPT, Bard, Bing & More [+examples]. Techopedia.