Prompting

Ask well

2 min read

Most people who decide Claude is mediocre make up their minds after a few tries. They asked something generically, got something vague back, and closed Claude. The tool may not have been the problem, but the request potentially was. A good prompt is not a magic phrase. It is being clear about what you want, the same way you would be clear with a new hire who is fast, eager, and has no idea how BC&V does things.

Ask Claude to "write a client email" and you will get a generic, slightly stiff email that could be from any firm to any client about anything. That is not Claude failing. You asked for a generic email and you got one. The fix is not a better tool, but a better ask.

A good prompt has five components. Tell Claude who to be, what to do, who it is for, what to keep, and how to shape the result. Not every prompt needs all five, but the more of them you give, the less guessing Claude has to do.

  1. 1Role
  2. 2Task
  3. 3Audience
  4. 4Context
  5. 5Format

Example

Act as an admin at an accounting firm (role). Draft a meeting agenda from these notes (task). The readers are a firm owner and a client (audience). Keep every name and date in the notes (context). Format it as a short plain-English Word document (format).

If you want to make your prompt shorter, get Task, Context, and Format right. What to do, what to keep, what format to return it in. Those three carry most results. Role and Audience are the polish: they adjust the tone, so reach for them when tone matters and skip them when it does not.

Before: "clean up this email." After: "Rewrite this email to a client so it is warm but firm, keeps the two dates I mentioned, and drops the apology in the first line. Here is the email." Same tool. The second one tells Claude what "clean up" actually means to you.

Your turn

Try it: fix this prompt

Start from a deliberately weak prompt, 'summarize this,' and rebuild it with the five parts above: who Claude should be, what to do, who it is for, what to keep, and how to shape the result.

You will not have to actively think about this way of prompting for long. After a week or two, giving Claude the role, the task, and the format becomes a habit. The good result stops being luck and starts being the default.