Anthropic's Prompt Engineering Interactive Tutorial · Lesson 2
Being Clear and Direct
The Golden Rule of Prompting, how to eliminate preambles, and how to make Claude commit to a single answer instead of hedging.
Practical exercise
What to do after this lesson
Rewrite the vague prompt 'Tell me about Paris' so Claude gives a three-bullet answer about tourist attractions without any introduction. Compare both responses.
Task grader
Rewrite the vague prompt 'Tell me about Paris' so Claude gives a three-bullet answer about tourist attractions without any introduction. Compare both responses.
Ready-to-use prompt
Template for this lesson
Copy and adapt to your context. Text in angle brackets should be replaced.
Task: [SPECIFIC ACTION VERB] + [EXACT OBJECT] Format: [BULLET LIST / NUMBERED / PARAGRAPH — pick one] Length: [WORD COUNT or SENTENCE COUNT] Skip: any preamble or introduction Tone: [FORMAL / CASUAL / TECHNICAL] Output only the result.