What a prompt is and why it matters so much
A prompt is the instruction you give to AI. Whatever you write in the chat box is the prompt.
A comparison makes it clear why this matters. If you tell a new employee "write a post", what will they write? They do not know what the post is about, who it is for, how long it should be or in what tone. The result is bound to be muddled.
It is the same with AI, with one extra problem. A human employee at least asks back. AI usually does not ask. It guesses, and then gives a neat answer built on the wrong guess.
So the main cause of a bad answer is not AI's weakness, it is an incomplete instruction. The good news is that this is easy to fix, and you can do it in Bangla.
The five parts of a good prompt
Five questions to remember. Not every prompt needs all five, but the more you include, the better the result.
1. Exactly what the task is. Not "write" but "write 5 alternative headlines" or "cut this text down to 100 words". Give the verb and the number.
2. The background. Who you are, what the business is, where the problem is. Two lines of background change the quality of the answer more than anything else.
3. Who the reader is. A customer, a student, a bank manager or a foreign client. When the reader changes, the language changes.
4. Shape and style. How many words, how many points, a table or paragraphs, simple Bangla or formal language.
5. Conditions and limits. What must not be included, which facts must not change, whether the price or phone number must be kept exactly.
Seven steps to put a prompt together
You do not need to think from scratch every time. Once you have this format by heart, a good instruction takes 60 seconds.
- Write the verb and the number first. "Write 3 alternatives", "make 15 questions", "cut to 100 words". This one line clears up half the vagueness.
- Introduce yourself in two lines. What the business is, where, who the buyers are. Write these two lines once, keep them in a phone note, and paste them every time.
- Write down who the reader is. Text "for customers" and text "for a bank manager" will not be the same.
- Fix the size and the language. How many lines, which language, how formal.
- Write the prohibitions separately. "Do not add any invented facts", "keep the price exactly", "fewer English words". If you give no prohibition, it fills the gaps itself.
- If you can, attach an example. Copy an old piece of writing and say "in this style".
- Give one correction after you get the answer. Do not walk off with the first answer. Refine it at least once.
Before and after, real examples
No theory. Look at eight real examples.
1. A shop's Facebook post
Before: Write a post for my shop.
After: I run a sweet shop in Mirpur 11, called "Rosona Mistanno". For Eid I am giving 10% off on all sweets, for 3 days. Write a post for Facebook. Conditions: at most 4 lines, simple spoken Bangla, few English words, the last line must have the phone number 01XXXXXXXXX. Give 3 alternatives, each in a different style.
In the first, AI will guess what the shop sells. In the second, nothing is left to guess, and you can choose from three alternatives.
2. A teacher's question paper
Before: Make some questions from this chapter.
After: Below is the text of the "Climate" chapter from the class nine geography book. From it, make 15 multiple choice questions. Each has 4 options, 3 should be easy, 3 hard and the rest medium. Do not put the answers with the questions, give them in a separate list at the very end. Do not use any information from outside the book.
The last condition matters most. Without it, AI will bring in outside information, and students will get questions whose answers are not in the book.
3. A job application email
Before: Write an email for a job.
After: I am applying for the post of "Officer, Customer Service" at a private bank. I have 2 years of experience in the call centre of a mobile financial service. Write an email to send to HR, in English, at most 150 words. The tone should be confident but modest. Do not add any invented achievement or certificate, use only what I have told you.
Remember the last condition. If you do not say it, AI may make up impressive-sounding achievements by itself, and they will be caught in the interview.
4. Wanting to understand a lesson
Before: Explain photosynthesis.
After: I am a class eight student and weak in science. Explain photosynthesis so that someone completely new can follow. Write in Bangla and start with an example from everyday life. First the main point in 5 lines, then a step by step explanation. At the end, ask me 3 questions so that I can tell whether I have really understood.
The last sentence is the real magic of this prompt. When AI asks you questions, your study turns from memorising into checking.
5. Building a website
Before: Make a website for my shop.
After: Build a website. Business: a homemade pickle shop in Chattogram, called "Nanur Achar". I need 3 pages: home, products and contact. On the home page, at the top the shop name and a one-line introduction, below it pictures and prices of 3 popular products. On the products page, 8 pickles, each with a name, price and weight. On the contact page, phone, WhatsApp and address. The colours should be green and off-white, the text in Bangla, and it must look good on a phone.
Notice there is no technical word here. It just says clearly what you want. With a tool like BanglaCodes, you can build and publish a site with a plain instruction like this. A site published for free works fully and even installs on a phone. Only if you want the messages from the contact form to actually reach you do you need lifetime hosting, and it is good to know that at the start.
6. A WhatsApp message to buyers
Before: New sarees have come, give me a message for customers.
After: I run a saree shop in Mymensingh town, called "Nilanjana Saree Ghar". A new lot of Tangail handloom has come, priced from 1800 to 4500 taka. Write a message to send on WhatsApp to old buyers. Conditions: at most 3 lines, address them as "Apa", keep the price range exactly, no emoji, do not mention delivery because I do not deliver. It must end with "Come to the shop".
The most valuable line here is "do not mention delivery". If you do not say it, AI may put in something like "delivery all over the country" by itself, and people will arrive in your inbox with the wrong expectation.
7. A summary from sales figures
Before: Look at these sales figures and tell me something.
After: Below are my shop's monthly sales figures for the last 3 months. Looking at these figures, write a summary in 5 bullets. In each bullet, write only what can be understood directly from these figures. Do not write outside guesses or general talk about the market. Do not create any new numbers. At the end, write separately what further information would have made your reading better.
Notice that the adding and dividing was not given to it. Do the arithmetic in a calculator or a spreadsheet, and give AI the job of explaining. This split cuts mistakes by a lot.
8. A hard message about raising your rate
Before: Tell the client I am going to raise my price.
After: I am a freelance designer living in Chattogram. I have worked with an old foreign client for a year and a half, and the rate has stayed the same. From next month I want to raise the rate by 20 percent. Write an email in English, at most 130 words. The tone should be grateful but firm. No line apologising. As the reason, say only "the scope of work has grown", and do not write personal financial reasons. Do not add any date or contract clause I have not mentioned.
In a hard message the tone is everything, and to fix the tone you have to say two things clearly: what feeling you want and what feeling you do not want. If you only say "write professionally", most of the time you get something overly polite.
How one prompt gets there in three tries
In the pairs above, "before" and "after" are shown side by side, but in real life there are a few tries in between. Suppose a college student in Dhaka wants to understand an economics chapter before an exam.
First try. They wrote "explain inflation". What came was correct, but of no use to them. The language was hard, the examples were foreign, and the text was so long that their attention slipped as they read. Eight minutes gone, nothing gained.
Second try. They added "write in simple Bangla, keep it short". This time the language was simple, but a new problem came. It was so short that there was nothing to write in an exam answer, and the example was still foreign.
Third try. This time they gave the whole structure:
I am a college student in Dhaka, an HSC examinee, weak in economics. Explain the subject of inflation. First the main point in 5 lines, then a step by step explanation, within 300 words in all. Give examples from everyday life in Bangladesh, such as the price of rice or eggs in the market. Simple spoken Bangla, few English words. At the end, ask me 4 questions so that I can tell whether I have really understood. Do not give me anything from outside the textbook to memorise.
What came this time was useful. The whole process took 12 minutes, most of it spent on the first two failed tries. But they saved the third instruction in a note, so for the next chapter they only need to change the name of the subject, and that takes 30 seconds.
Still, they had to be careful in one place. AI itself gave a wrong answer to one of the last questions, and mixed up a number. It is reliable in explaining, but not in specific numbers, and remembering this difference is the real work.
A structure to copy exactly
For a complex task, just copy this template and fill in the blanks.
Background: I am [who], [where], my work is [what]. Task: [verb] [number] [thing]. Reader: [who it is for], they [know or do not know what]. Shape: [how many words or lines], [language], [tone]. Conditions: [what must be kept exactly], [what not to write], [do not add invented facts]. Example: Write in the style of the text below, [paste old text].
You do not have to fill every box. But wherever you leave one empty, that is where it will guess, and that is where a mistake is most likely.
Side by side
| Weak prompt | Why it is bad | Good prompt |
| Give me a good name | A name for what, for whom, nothing is said | Give 20 names for an online tea seller's page in Sylhet, in Bangla words, each within 2 words |
| Fix this text | What does fix mean, spelling or structure | Fix the spelling and punctuation of this text, do not change the sentence structure, and list below what you changed |
| Make a marketing plan | A question this big gets a stock answer | Make a 4 week plan for a home delivery service in Dhaka, for people aged 25 to 35, on a budget of 30 thousand taka a month, divided by week |
| Write code | Language, purpose and input are not stated | Write a function in Python that reads a CSV file and finds total sales per month, the file columns are date and taka, add Bangla comments in the code |
| Summarise | How long, for whom, not stated | Summarise this 3 page notice in 5 bullets, so that a shopkeeper can see at a glance what they have to do |
| Make me a CV | Which post, what experience, nothing | Below is my list of experience, arrange it into a one page CV, the post is junior merchandiser, do not add any new experience or skill |
| Translate this | Which language, which tone, for whom | Translate this Bangla text into English, the reader is a foreign buyer, the tone professional, keep product names and prices exactly as they are in Bangla script |
Give an example and the result jumps
The most effective trick is the least used. Showing AI works much better than telling it.
Copy an old post of yours that did well, and write "write one for a new product in this style and at the same length". With this one line you have explained tone, length, choice of words and structure all at once, which would have taken ten lines to explain.
Two or three examples make it even better. It helps especially when the output needs a fixed template, such as a description in the same format for each product.
The opposite example also works, and almost nobody uses it. Give a bad sample and write "I do not want this kind of writing, because it sounds too much like an advertisement". Saying what you do not want is often easier than saying what you want, and the result is better too.
Have AI ask you questions
If the task is complex, do not ask for the result directly. Add this line.
Before you start, ask me 5 questions, the answers to which will make your work better.
This gives two gains. One, the places where AI would have guessed come out into the open. Two, you yourself see where your own need is vague. On a big task, this one line saves the most time.
It has a companion line, which you add after the work is done.
Write a separate list of where you made guesses while doing this task.
When you read the list you will know which lines need verifying and which are safe.
One prompt is not the end
Beginners either take the first answer and go away happy, or get disappointed and give up. Experienced people take the third or fourth answer.
The table below shows which correction sentence to use for which problem.
| Problem with the answer | The sentence to write |
| It came out too long | "Bring it to half the length, do not drop any information" |
| It sounds too much like an advertisement | "This sounds like an advertisement, write in natural spoken language" |
| Too many English words | "Reduce the English words, use simple Bangla" |
| One point is good, the rest are not | "Keep point 3 and drop the rest, write about that one in detail" |
| All the alternatives are nearly the same | "Write the same thing in two more ways, the style must be completely different" |
| It seems to have invented something somewhere | "Tell me separately where you made guesses here" |
| It cannot catch the tone | Paste an old piece of writing and say "write in this style" |
| The structure is fine, the information is thin | "Add one real example under each point" |
Add one small trick. So that the good part is not lost while you make a correction, write "change only this one thing, keep the rest as it is". If you do not say it, it often rewrites the whole text again.
The mistakes that happen most
| Mistake | What happens | Fix |
| Giving many tasks at once | None of them is done well | One task in one prompt, then the next |
| Not writing prohibitions | It fills the gaps with invented facts | Write "do not add what I have not said" |
| Not giving a word count | An answer three times longer than needed | Give a limit like "at most 100 words" |
| Pushing back hard on a mistake | It apologises and gives an even worse answer | Ask "where did you get this from" |
| Starting from zero every time | You write the same background again and again | Keep the two lines of introduction in a note and paste them |
| Ten different topics in one chat | Old context leaks into the new answer | New chat when the subject changes |
| Doing arithmetic with a prompt | Wrong sums quietly come out | Arithmetic in a spreadsheet, explanation in AI |
Tricks that do not really work
Many tips going round on Facebook change nothing. To put it honestly:
- Extra roles. Writing "you are a world-class expert with 20 years of experience" may make a slight difference, but it is not magic. Writing "in simple Bangla, for shopkeepers" is far more effective.
- Rewards or threats. Lines like "I will give you 100 dollars if you do it right" do not work.
- The idea that longer is better. Adding unneeded words actually buries the main instruction. Give the needed information, do not add words.
- The magic of politeness. Saying "please" will not dramatically improve the answer. Being polite is a good habit, but it is not a technique.
- Lists of secret words. The claim goes round that writing certain words switches on hidden features. These are usually advertisements for selling that list.
And remember the biggest limit. Information that AI does not know cannot be got out of it with any prompt. However nicely you ask for today's market price in your area, the answer will remain a guess.
When not to waste time on a prompt
Writing a good prompt is a working skill, but not everywhere. In some cases the honest answer is that sitting down to arrange an instruction is the wrong decision.
When the task is quick to do by hand. Arranging a six line instruction to write a three line message is just wasted time. Where the time to write the instruction is more than the time for the task, write it yourself.
When AI does not have the information. Today's market price, today's government rule, specific news from your area. However perfect the prompt, the answer stays a guess. A good instruction cannot turn ignorance into knowledge.
When you need exact numbers. Adding up big sums, working out interest, splitting shares. A spreadsheet will do this exactly, and no prompt trick is needed there.
When the blame for a mistake will go to your name. A legal reply, a medical decision, an audit opinion. You can take a draft, but a brilliant prompt will not save you from responsibility.
When the real value of the text is in your own voice. A message of condolence, an apology, words written to someone dear. Here, a true and untidy word is worth far more than tidy language.
Questions and answers
Does writing the prompt in Bangla make the answer worse? Not for everyday tasks. But on a very technical subject, you will usually get a better result by giving the instruction in English and writing "answer in Bangla" at the end.
How long should a prompt be? As long as it needs to be. Two or three lines are enough for ordinary tasks. Ten lines are fine for complex tasks, if every line adds new information.
If I give the same prompt again and again, will I get the same answer? No, each time it will come out a little different. You can use this: for an important task, run it twice and compare the two answers, and if they differ, you know that part needs verifying.
Is it worth buying a ready-made list of prompts? Usually not. The most valuable part, your business and your reader's background, is not in that list. Instead, keep the prompts that have given good results in your work in a note on your phone. That will be the most valuable list.
If AI makes a mistake, is it the prompt's fault? Often it is, especially with a vague instruction. But not always. With specific facts, numbers or dates, a mistake can come even with a perfect prompt, because there the problem is not the instruction, it is the nature of the Model.
If I give a long instruction, does it forget the conditions at the start? It can happen in a very long conversation, because there is a limit to how much text it can hold in front of it. You can handle this in two ways. Write the most important conditions again at the very end, and when the chat gets too long, say "write the conditions so far in 5 points" and carry them into a new chat.
Do I have to put my real information in the prompt? No need, and in many cases you should not. Change customers' names, phone numbers, NID or bank details. Putting in "Customer 1" and a number close to the real one will make the work come out fine, and the risk is gone.
Are the rules different if I give a picture or a file with the prompt? The rules are the same, with one thing added. When you give a file, write clearly "use only the information in this file, nothing from outside". This one line shuts the biggest path by which invented facts get in.
In short
- A prompt is the instruction you give AI, and the biggest cause of a bad answer is not AI's weakness but an incomplete instruction.
- A good prompt has five things: task, background, reader, shape and conditions.
- Giving one example and saying "write in this style" is the most powerful trick, because it explains tone and structure together.
- Writing prohibitions is the most neglected part of an instruction, because where you say nothing, it will guess and put in invented facts.
- The first answer is not final. Two or three rounds of correction give a much better result.
- Tricks about roles, rewards or long text do not work, and information the Model does not know cannot be got out with any prompt.