Stop Treating ChatGPT Like a Posh Tutor
Most students treat AI like a search engine and then wonder why the output reads like a damp rag. You are not asking a librarian for help; you are programming a tireless intern who needs precise instructions to stop hallucinating.
Kill the “Please” and “Thank You”
Politeness is a waste of tokens and makes your prompts soft. Give the AI a specific persona—like a grumpy Oxford don or a ruthless editor—to strip away the generic waffle that plagues undergraduate essays.
Feed it the Mark Scheme
The UK degree system is a box-ticking exercise. Do not ask for a “good essay”; paste the specific grading criteria from your module handbook and tell the AI to ruthlessly critique your draft against the First-Class boundary.
Use the “Few-Shot” Method
Providing a blank slate leads to mediocrity. Give the machine three examples of the exact tone and structure you want before asking for a single word of new content, or you will end up with the same beige prose as everyone else in your seminar.
Underground Pro-Tip 💡: Use the “Chain of Density” prompt to force the AI to rewrite its own summaries five times, making them increasingly information-rich without adding length, effectively bypassing the fluff-detection of most modern markers.
Stop asking for answers and start building the logic that generates them.
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