A shorter prompt, a better answer

Before you add a paragraph, cross out half

When people fear the model will not understand, they write a novel. Five paragraphs about what the teacher is like, what happened last time, what a brother said. The model pulls random bits from that and forgets the core. A shorter prompt is not laziness. It is sharpness. You leave a stamp, one request, one ban. The rest is noise. Noise breeds noise. A long prompt also tempts personal data: names, stories, school. A short one carries that worse. Curious learns to cross out. Not because you pay for tokens. Because a clear order gets a clear cake. A novel gets a buffet from which you eat the wrong plate.

Bára writes half a page: the teacher’s name, that the lesson bores her, that classmate Honza laughs, that she needs “something for tomorrow for a mark”. Ema reads it and crosses out. Left: “Year 6, science, the water cycle, I already know evaporation, I want one comparison to a kettle, not a definition.” Bára sends the short version. The answer is usable. The long version before that made advice how to talk to Honza — which Bára did not want and Honza does not belong in the chat. Crossing out saved privacy and the topic. Bára writes: one request per prompt. Stories belong with a person, not in the box.

💡

The one-request rule. One prompt = one thing. If you want two, send a second message after.

Noise, core, ban

Core: stamp + a verb (explain / ask me) + format. Ban: no finished homework, no personal data, no invented books. Noise: the teacher’s mood, classmates’ names, a whole life. Noise can be read by the model as a task — it starts advising a relationship, not schoolwork. A shorter prompt also shows more clearly when the model flies off. With a long one you do not know what it actually answered. Technique: write long on paper, then leave three sentences. Those three go into the chat. You can show the paper to a parent. Not the chat. Shortening is a skill you will use in Little bird with format. Today it is scissors.

Before and after.

Before (noise): “Hi, I am Bára from 6.B, Ms Nováková gave us homework and Honza said he got it from AI and I do not want to be told off, write it like me, I like horses and we live near a park, the topic is water.”

After: “Year 6, science, the water cycle. I already know rain. I want one comparison. Not the homework text. No names.”

Numbers: the first has more than 50 words and three extra bits of data. The second has under 30 words and the core. Send the second.

⚠️

Short does not mean “write it”. That is short and bad. Short and good has a stamp and a ban.

Why this right now

You are in the course Ask with Martin, level Curious. You work in a chatbot (ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude) — same game, different brand. No code. A parent or the school creates the account. A child’s email does not belong here.

This is not the Inventor level. There you build a chatbot on your own website. Here you are a user: a question, a check, a citation.

You will know this lesson by one sentence: One request, a stamp, a ban — cross out the rest. When you can say it to a parent or a teacher, you have got the core. The rest is practice, not magic.

You can do context. Now do not let it drown in a novel. Tomorrow you will ask again differently — that only works when you know what was in the first short order.

Four things you will build in this course

The course has four small projects. You do not have to do them all at once. Today you add only what this lesson can do.

🏫 A report with citations

An outline, three sources that exist, and a sentence in your own words. AI must not be the only author.

A report outline: five points, not your life story in the prompt.

📝 Test training

Coach role: let it ask, do not let it say the answer. You count / answer yourself.

Coach: a short role + a ban on the answer. Not a story about a mark.

📅 Family planner

Tasks for the week (not passwords, not marks). A parent sees the plan, not your chat.

Planner: a list of days, not a novel about the family.

📜 An AI code for the class

Seven short rules on a poster. No horror — a how-to.

Code: “No classmates’ names in a prompt.”

Workshop: scissors on paper

First you write a long prompt on purpose. Then you cross out until the core is left. Only the short version goes into the chat.

On paper write a long prompt on purpose about this week’s work. Eight lines is fine. Do not put personal names there — even practice keeps the never bin.
Cross out everything that is not year, subject, I know/got stuck, one request, one ban. Count the words left. Goal: under 40 words.
Send the short version. Read whether the answer hit that one request. If not, do not lengthen the novel. Add one fix sentence.
Compare with a friend: show only the short versions. Do not leave the long ones on a desk at school — paper can carry stories too.
In the notebook the one-request rule. Next time, when you want a quiz and an analogy, you send two messages.

Practice: cross out the noise

In each text underline the noise. Write the core in one sentence.

A prompt with the teacher’s mood and a request for an analogy on fractions.
A prompt that asks at once for a composition, a quiz and a translation.
A short prompt “do it” — how do you lengthen it only by a stamp, not by a novel?

Now you 💪

Go through three checks. At each one tick in your head: can I see it, or not?

You can turn a long paper into under 40 words without losing the stamp.
You keep one request per message.
A short prompt is still not “write the homework”.

If something is missing, go back to the steps above. This is not a test for marks. It is a safety net, so you go on sure, not confused.

✅

Check: You have scissors: long on paper, short into the chat, one request.

What to take from this lesson

A novel in the box confuses the core.
Noise takes privacy and the topic.
One request per prompt.
Short and good ≠ short and lazy.
Crossing out is a Curious skill.
The names in the examples (Bára, Ema) are made up. Do not put your number, email or photo here.
Next lesson: When you can do this, go to the next lesson in the same level.