Vague prompts get vague answers, so replace every vague word in your prompt with a number, a rule, or an example.
- A vague word forces the AI to guess the most likely meaning, which is rarely the one you had in mind.
- Words like "short," "good," "clean," and "modern" are too vague, while "under three sentences" and "no emojis" are specific.
- For each request, ask whether someone could objectively check that the output met it.
- If they could not, replace the vague word with a number, a rule, or an example.
Example: Change "make the report nice" to "one page, three bullet takeaways at the top, no jargon."