Six modules, one goal: you can now write prompts that produce consistent, high-quality results. This capstone puts every technique together, gives you a practical challenge to complete today, and certifies what you have learned.
Module 1
What Is a Prompt
Why wording changes results: pattern matching, context windows, and the three parts of every prompt.
Module 2
Anatomy of a Prompt
The CLEAR framework: Context, Length, Examples, Audience, Role. Five components that turn vague prompts into precise ones.
Module 3
Zero-Shot, Few-Shot, CoT
Three techniques: ask without examples, show before you ask, or give the model a reasoning path to follow step by step.
Module 4
Prompt Patterns
Six reusable patterns: Expert Persona, Step-by-Step, Structured Output, Comparison, Devil's Advocate, Iterative Refinement.
Module 5
Avoiding Bad Outputs
Five failure modes and the fix for each: vague task, missing context, no format, no audience, compound task.
Module 6
Building Your Use Case
The six-step workflow from task to tested prompt, iteration, and when to move from prompting to fine-tuning.
Your Practical Challenge
Reading about prompting is not the same as doing it. Your task: build a three-prompt library for your own role. Each prompt should use at least one CLEAR component, one pattern, and one constraint. Test all three and note what changed between your first draft and the final version.
Three prompts to build today
1
A writing task you do weekly. Email drafts, meeting summaries, project updates, proposals. Pick one you do at least once a week and save a prompt that makes it 10 minutes faster.
2
An analysis or research task. Summarizing a report, extracting key points from feedback, comparing options, synthesizing research. Use few-shot if the format is specific to your work.
3
A communication task. A difficult email, a message to a stakeholder, a customer-facing response. Use the Expert Persona pattern to set a role that fits the situation.
For each prompt: write draft 1 using everything you have learned. Test it. Write down what was wrong. Fix one thing. Test again. One more iteration. Three rounds will get you to a prompt worth saving permanently.