Ethan Mollick

Professor at Wharton studying AI and innovation. Author of "Co-Intelligence".

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ChatGPT Tips (3) Prompt Engineering (4)

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What is the "pretend you are an expert" technique?

Start prompts with "You are an expert [role]" to activate relevant knowledge patterns. This framing helps the model draw from specialized knowledge and adopt appropriate communication styles for that domain.

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Why should I ask the AI to think step by step?

Adding "think step by step" or "let's work through this" to prompts triggers chain-of-thought reasoning. This dramatically improves accuracy on math, logic, and multi-step problems by forcing the model to show its work.

quick-win Ethan Mollick Prompt Engineering, ChatGPT Tips

What is the "sandwich" feedback technique?

When iterating on AI output, structure feedback as: what worked, what to change, then restate what to keep. This prevents the model from over-correcting and throwing out good elements while fixing problems.

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How do I prevent ChatGPT from being too verbose?

End prompts with "Be concise" or specify a word/sentence limit. You can also say "Reply in [X] sentences maximum" for precise control. ChatGPT defaults to thorough explanations unless constrained.

quick-win Ethan Mollick ChatGPT Tips

What temperature setting should I use?

Temperature controls randomness. Use 0-0.3 for factual tasks (coding, math, analysis), 0.5-0.7 for balanced tasks (writing, summarization), and 0.8-1.0 for creative tasks (brainstorming, fiction). Start low and increase if outputs feel too rigid.

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