5 Top Tips for Prompting with Copilot

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a powerful AI assistant that helps you write better and faster in various applications, such as Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Teams. By using Copilot, you can get instant suggestions, corrections, and feedback for your writing tasks, such as emails, reports, presentations, and more. 

Prompting is a way of communicating with Copilot and telling it what you want it to do. You can use natural language to ask Copilot to generate, edit, or improve your text, or to perform other tasks, such as summarising, translating, or finding information. Prompting helps Copilot understand your intention and context, and provide you with the most relevant and helpful output. 

Below are our top 5 tips to help when you are prompting Copilot in your day to day. 

1. Give Copilot a role  

One way to help Copilot generate better results is to give it a role when prompting. This means telling Copilot what kind of task you want it to perform and what perspective you want it to adopt. For example, you can say "as a project manager, create a project plan based on this document" or "you are a HR manager, create a job description for a customer success role". By doing this, you provide Copilot with more context and guidance about the purpose and scope of your request. This can help Copilot select the most relevant and appropriate information and language for your output. 

2. Tell Copilot the context of your ask  

Another way to help Copilot generate better results is to tell it why you are asking it to do something. This means explaining the motivation or goal behind your request, and how it relates to your situation or project. For example, you can say "you are a marketing manager who needs to create a LinkedIn post to promote a new customer success role, to encourage people to apply" or "you are a student who wants to write a summary of this article for your assignment, to demonstrate your understanding of the main points". By doing this, you help Copilot understand the context and the audience of your output, and what kind of tone and style you expect. This can help Copilot produce more relevant and suitable content for your needs. 

3. Tell Copilot the audience 

One of the factors that affects the quality and effectiveness of your output is the audience. The audience is the group of people who will read, listen, or watch your output, and who you want to communicate with or persuade. Different audiences have different levels of knowledge, interest, and expectations about your topic, and they may react differently to your tone, style, and language choices. Therefore, it is important to tell Copilot who your output is for, so that it can tailor its content and format to suit your audience's needs and preferences. For example, if you tell Copilot to rewrite a patient letter so someone who doesn’t work in medicine understands, it will use simpler terms and avoid jargon. Or if you ask Copilot to write meeting minutes in a way that a young child will understand, it will use shorter sentences and more playful words. By telling Copilot the audience, you can help it generate more appropriate and engaging output for your goals. 

4. Tell Copilot what you don’t want it to do 

Another way to improve the quality and effectiveness of your output is to tell Copilot what you don't want it to do. Sometimes, Copilot may make choices that are not suitable for your purpose or preference, such as reorganising the order of sections in a document, using bullet points instead of paragraphs, or adding details that are irrelevant or inaccurate. In these cases, you can give Copilot feedback and instructions on how to correct or avoid these mistakes. For example, if Copilot keeps reorganising the order of sections in a document, you can tell it to keep to the original order. Or if Copilot keeps putting the response in bullet points, you can tell it not to use bullet points. By telling Copilot what format and content you want, you can help it generate more relevant and consistent output for your goals. 

5. Make sure your prompts are clear 

Lastly, to improve the quality and effectiveness of your output is to use clarity and be very clear and specific about what you want. Copilot is a powerful tool that can generate text based on your prompts, but it may not always understand your intentions or preferences. By explaining what you want like you would to a person sitting next to you, you can help Copilot produce more relevant and accurate output for your goals. For example, you can tell Copilot the purpose of your writing, the tone and style you prefer, the format and structure you expect, and any other details that are important for your task. Use polite language and full sentences - don't use keywords like a search bar. By telling Copilot what you want clearly and specifically, you can make the most of its capabilities and get the best results possible. 

If you need help with using Copilot for your writing projects, CPS can assist you. To learn more about our services and how we can help you with Copilot, please get in touch with us today.