Advanced Prompt Engineering: Beyond the Basics

You know "be specific" and "give examples." Here's what comes next.

The Prompt Engineering Hierarchy

1. Clear instructions

2. Structured formatting

3. Few-shot examples

4. Chain-of-thought reasoning

5. Systematic optimization

Most stop at Level 2. The gains are in 3-5.

Chain-of-Thought Prompting

Instead of asking for the answer, ask for the reasoning.

**Without CoT:**

"What's 23 × 17?" → "391" (sometimes wrong)

**With CoT:**

"What's 23 × 17? Think through this step by step." → Shows work, correct answer

Few-Shot Prompting

Show examples of desired input-output pairs:

```

Input: [example 1 input]

Output: [example 1 output]

Input: [your actual input]

Output:

```

3-5 diverse, consistent examples are optimal.

Self-Consistency

Generate multiple responses, take the majority answer. Higher cost but higher accuracy.

Systematic Optimization

1. **Baseline**: Establish current performance

2. **Hypothesis**: What change might improve?

3. **Test**: Run both versions

4. **Measure**: Compare metrics

5. **Iterate**: Keep winner, form new hypothesis

Advanced Techniques

• **Role Priming**: "You are an expert [domain]..."
• **Output Scaffolding**: Provide structure, LLM fills it
• **Negative Prompting**: "Do not include..."
• **Prompt Chaining**: Break complex tasks into steps

Prompt engineering is engineering. Apply the rigor.

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