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Bonus — Prompting Basics & Best Practices
This is the thing that separates people who get decent results from people who get extraordinary ones. You don't need to master prompting — you just need to know how to ask Claude to do it for you.
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Page 9 of 14 · Module 3 — Get Better Results Than 90% of Users
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The Biggest Mistake People Make
When Claude gives a mediocre answer, most people do one of two things:
- Accept it and move on
- Try to rephrase the prompt themselves
There's a third option almost nobody uses: ask Claude what a better prompt would have looked like.
Claude knows what it needs to produce great output. Most of the time, you just haven't given it enough to work with. The trick is getting Claude to tell you what it's missing.
Generating a Prompt With a Prompt
The "What Do You Need?" Pattern
Retroactive Improvement
Prompting Best Practices (The Short Version)
✅ Do
- Give context before the task: who you are, why you need it, who it's for
- Be specific about format: "bullet list", "table", "under 200 words", "write it as an email"
- Use examples: "something like this: [example]" is one of the most useful phrases you can use
- Iterate instead of restart: "make it shorter" / "more formal" / "add a section on X" is faster than starting again
- Ask for a plan first on complex tasks: "before you do anything, tell me your approach"
❌ Don't
- Be vague and hope for the best: "write me something about my business" will get you something generic
- Accept mediocre output without trying: one follow-up message usually fixes it
- Over-explain: Claude doesn't need an essay. The four things from Page 8 — How to Talk to Claude (context, action, format, constraints) are enough