Prompt Engineering Guide for AI

Table of Contents

1. Prompt Engineering Basics

What is Prompt Engineering?

Prompt engineering is the art of crafting effective prompts to get desired outputs from LLMs.

Why Prompt Engineering?

• Better results from AI models
• More efficient workflows
• Better AI applications
• Cost savings

2. Techniques

Zero-Shot Prompting

Classify the following text as positive, negative, or neutral:
"The food was great and the service was excellent."
Answer: positive

Few-Shot Prompting

Classify the text as positive, negative, or neutral:
Text: "The food was great" → Positive
Text: "The service was terrible" → Negative
Text: "It was okay" → Neutral
Text: "I loved it" → 

Chain-of-Thought Prompting

Solve this step by step:
A store has 100 apples. They sell 30% on Monday and 20% of the remaining on Tuesday. How many apples are left?

Step 1: Monday sales = 100 * 0.30 = 30 apples
Step 2: Remaining after Monday = 100 - 30 = 70 apples
Step 3: Tuesday sales = 70 * 0.20 = 14 apples
Step 4: Remaining after Tuesday = 70 - 14 = 56 apples

Answer: 56 apples

3. Examples

Code Generation

Write a Python function to calculate factorial:
def factorial(n):
    if n == 0:
        return 1
    return n * factorial(n-1)

Data Analysis

Analyze this sales data and provide insights:
Data: [100, 150, 200, 180, 220]
Insights: 
- Sales increased from 100 to 220 (120% growth)
- Average sales: 170
- Peak sales: 220

4. Best Practices

• Be specific: Clear instructions lead to better results
• Provide context: Give background information
• Use examples: Show what you want
• Iterate: Refine prompts based on results
• Test: Try different approaches

Download Prompt Engineering Guide PDF

Get the complete Prompt Engineering Guide as a free PDF. Enter your email to receive the download link.

Start Learning with DSWallah

Join 300+ students who transformed their careers with DSWallah. IIT-certified mentor, 50+ real projects, placement support.