Prompt engineering is the art of communicating with a generative large language model. — ChatGPT
This paper introduces 26 guiding principles designed to streamline the process of querying and prompting large language models. Our goal is to simplify the underlying concepts of formulating questions for various scales of large language models, examining their abilities, and enhancing user comprehension on the behaviors of different scales of large language models when feeding into different prompts. Extensive experiments are conducted on LLaMA-1/2 (7B, 13B and 70B), GPT-3.5/4 to verify the effectiveness of the proposed principles on instructions and prompts design. We hope that this work provides a better guide for researchers working on the prompting of large language models. Project page is available at https://github.com/VILA-Lab/ATLAS .
1
No need to be polite with LLM so there is no need to add phrases like “please”, “if you don’t mind”, “thank you”,
“I would like to”, etc., and get straight to the point.
2 Integrate the intended audience in the prompt, e.g., the audience is an expert in the field.
3 Break down complex tasks into a sequence of simpler prompts in an interactive conversation.
4 Employ affirmative directives such as ‘do,’ while steering clear of negative language like ‘don’t’.
5
When you need clarity or a deeper understanding of a topic, idea, or any piece of information, utilize the
following prompts:
o Explain [insert specific topic] in simple terms.
o Explain to me like I’m 11 years old.
o Explain to me as if I’m a beginner in [field].
o Write the [essay/text/paragraph] using simple English like you’re explaining something to a 5-year-old.
6 Add “I’m going to tip $xxx for a better solution!”
7 Implement example-driven prompting (Use few-shot prompting).
8
When formatting your prompt, start with ‘###Instruction###’, followed by either ‘###Example###’
or ‘###Question###’ if relevant. Subsequently, present your content. Use one or more
line breaks to separate instructions, examples, questions, context, and input data.
9 Incorporate the following phrases: “Your task is” and “You MUST”.
10 Incorporate the following phrases: “You will be penalized”.
11 use the phrase ”Answer a question given in a natural, human-like manner” in your prompts.
12 Use leading words like writing “think step by step”.
13 Add to your prompt the following phrase “Ensure that your answer is unbiased and does not rely on stereotypes”.
14
Allow the model to elicit precise details and requirements from you by asking
you questions until he has enough information to provide the needed output
(for example, “From now on, I would like you to ask me questions to…”).
15
To inquire about a specific topic or idea or any information and you want to test your understanding, you can use
the following phrase: “Teach me the [Any theorem/topic/rule name] and include a test at the end, but don’t
give me the answers and then tell me if I got the answer right when I respond”.
16 Assign a role to the large language models.
17 Use Delimiters.
18 Repeat a specific word or phrase multiple times within a prompt.
19 Combine Chain-of-thought (CoT) with few-Shot prompts.
20
Use output primers, which involve concluding your prompt with the beginning of the desired output. Utilize output
primers by ending your prompt with the start of the anticipated response.
21
To write an essay /text /paragraph /article or any type of text that should be detailed: “Write a detailed [essay/text
/paragraph] for me on [topic] in detail by adding all the information necessary”.
22
To correct/change specific text without changing its style: “Try to revise every paragraph sent by users. You should
only improve the user’s grammar and vocabulary and make sure it sounds natural. You should not change the
writing style, such as making a formal paragraph casual”.
23
When you have a complex coding prompt that may be in different files: “From now and on whenever you generate
code that spans more than one file, generate a [programming language ] script that can be run to automatically
create the specified files or make changes to existing files to insert the generated code. [your question]”.
24
When you want to initiate or continue a text using specific words, phrases, or sentences, utilize the following
prompt:
o I’m providing you with the beginning [song lyrics/story/paragraph/essay…]: [Insert lyrics/words/sentence]’.
Finish it based on the words provided. Keep the flow consistent.
25
Clearly state the requirements that the model must follow in order to produce content,
in the form of the keywords, regulations, hint, or instructions
26
To write any text, such as an essay or paragraph, that is intended to be similar to a provided sample, include the
following instructions:
o Please use the same language based on the provided paragraph[/title/text /essay/answer].
Today, we published an exploration of the power of prompting strategies that demonstrates how the generalist GPT-4 model can perform as a specialist on medical challenge problem benchmarks. The study shows GPT-4’s ability to outperform a leading model that was fine-tuned specifically for medical applications, on the same benchmarks and by a significant margin. These results are among other recent studies that show how prompting strategies alone can be effective in evoking this kind of domain-specific expertise from generalist foundation models.
