Being clear and direct

Most prompts are vaguer than their authors think. The author knows what they meant. Claude does not. Claude reads the words that are there, not the intent behind them.

This lesson is about removing the gap between what you intend and what you write.

Specificity in three dimensions

Prompts fail on specificity in three places. Fixing all three is the difference between a prompt that works most of the time and one that works almost every time.

Dimension 1: Audience. Who is the output for? "Non-technical" is a start, but it is still abstract. "A marketing manager who has run email campaigns for five years and has never written a line of code" is a picture. Claude can write for a picture. It cannot write for an adjective.

Dimension 2: Format. "Brief" means three words to one person and three pages to another. Give Claude a number. "Under 50 words." "Three bullet points, each one sentence." "A two-paragraph memo." Numbers are unambiguous.

Dimension 3: Constraints. What should the output avoid? What should it include? "Use only cooking analogies" is a constraint. "Do not use technical jargon" is a constraint. "Include the product name in the first sentence" is a constraint. Constraints narrow the space of valid answers, which narrows the space of bad answers.

Before and after

Before: "Explain machine learning."

After: "Explain machine learning to a non-technical marketing manager in 3 bullet points, using only cooking analogies. Each bullet should be one sentence. Do not use the words 'algorithm,' 'model,' or 'data.'"

The before version produces a general explanation. The after version produces something specific, bounded, and constrained. The constraint about banned words forces Claude to find analogies rather than falling back on jargon.

A note on directness

Claude does not need to be flattered or coaxed. It does not perform better when you say "please" or "this is very important." What it responds to is precision. Write the prompt the way you would write a specification: state what you want, state what you do not want, state the format.

If you find yourself writing "I need you to try to write something that kind of explains..." you have already lost. Start over. State the task as a single direct imperative sentence.

If you get stuck

If the output is still not specific enough, the audience description is probably still abstract. Replace the adjective with a job title and one concrete fact about that person's knowledge or situation.

If the output is too long, add a word count constraint. If it is too short, add "Explain in detail, covering at least X points."

Cross-reference

L2 covered the basic three-part structure (task, context, format). This lesson deepens the format and context dimensions. L6 (Assigning roles) covers a different way to sharpen audience specificity.

Deliverable

Take the LinkedIn post prompt: "Draft a 50-word LinkedIn post announcing [your company]'s new feature." Fill in your actual company and feature. Add one audience constraint, one banned word or phrase, and one structural requirement. Run it. The output should be something you could post.