chapter five

5 Prompt Patterns

 

This chapter covers

  • Applying nine foundational prompt patterns that solve common AI interaction challenges.
  • Using Structural patterns to establish consistent model behavior and output quality.
  • Employing Contextual patterns to identify overlooked risks, gaps, and blind spots in your content.
  • Implementing Transformational workflows that enhance content quality.
  • Combining patterns effectively to handle complex prompting challenges.

In Chapters 3 and 4, you mastered the building blocks of effective prompts: structural elements that organize information and linguistic elements that control communication precision. These foundations enable you to construct well-formed prompts, but they don’t address how to interact with language models strategically across different types of challenges..

While structural and linguistic elements give you the tools to frame prompts effectively, they don’t provide a systematic way to solve recurring challenges. In this chapter, you’ll learn prompt patterns, strategic approaches that let you apply proven methods to different types of problems.

Understanding Prompt Patterns

Prompt patterns are proven methods for interacting with language models to achieve reliable results. They let you generate original content, critically evaluate existing work, refine outputs, or transform materials for new contexts.

5.1 Role Assignment Pattern

5.1.1 Practical Example: Email Subject Line Optimization

5.1.2 Hands-On Practice

5.2 Delimiter Pattern

5.2.1 Practical Example: Brand Positioning Analysis

5.2.2 Hands-On Practice

5.3 Template Pattern

5.3.1 Practical Example: Competitive Analysis Reports

5.3.2 Hands-On Practice

5.4 Tail Generation Pattern

5.4.1 Practical Example: Customer Service Consistency

5.4.2 Hands-On Practice

5.5 Self-Reflection Pattern

5.5.1 Practical Example: Study Plan Development

5.5.2 Hands-On Practice

5.6 Inversion Pattern

5.6.1 Practical Example: Marketing Strategy Validation

5.6.2 Hands-On Practice

5.7 Refinement Pattern

5.7.1 Practical Example: Study Explanation Improvement

5.7.2 Hands-On Practice

5.8 Style Transfer Pattern

5.8.1 Practical Example: Technical Explanation Adaptation

5.8.2 Hands-On Practice

5.9 Comment Driven Generation

5.9.1 Practical Example: Research Paper Introduction Refinement

5.9.2 Hands-On Practice