Claude as a Writing and Drafting Assistant Log in and enroll to track lesson completion. By the end of this lesson, students should be able to: The reusable template principle. If you have used Claude to do the same type of task more than three times, you should have a template for it. A template is a saved prompt with variable placeholders – the parts that change each time you use it – clearly marked. You fill in the variables and submit. Templates save the effort of re-crafting instructions every time. They also encode best practices – once you find a prompt structure that produces great output, you capture it so you get great output every time, not just when you remember to include all the right components. Anatomy of a prompt template. A well-built template has three parts: Variable placeholders should be visually distinct. Common conventions: [BRACKETS], {CURLY BRACES}, <<ANGLE BRACKETS>>, or ALL_CAPS labels. Example template: “` ROLE: You are a direct, professional business writer. TASK: Write a weekly project status update email. CONTENT TO INCLUDE: AUDIENCE: [AUDIENCE – e.g., "non-technical executive sponsor"] CONSTRAINTS: Under 200 words. No jargon. Lead with the most important status, not background. Do not include generic filler sentences. FORMAT: Subject line, three short paragraphs. No bullet points in the final email. “` Good candidates for templates. Templates are most valuable for: Where to store templates. Store your templates wherever you can access them quickly when you need them: a notes app, a text file, a document, a dedicated prompt library tool. The format does not matter – what matters is that you actually use them rather than recreating the wheel each time. Evolving your templates. Treat templates as living documents. When a template produces a particularly good output, note what made it work. When it produces a weak output, identify which variable or instruction caused the problem and revise the template. Your templates should improve over time – they are a compounding asset. A recruiter generates job postings frequently. Without a template, she rewrites the prompt structure every time. With a template: “` ROLE: You are a clear and inclusive job description writer. TASK: Write a job posting for [JOB_TITLE] at [COMPANY_NAME]. DETAILS: CONSTRAINTS: FORMAT: Job summary (3 sentences), responsibilities (bulleted, 5-6 items), qualifications (bulleted, 4-6 items), brief about-us paragraph. “` She fills in the brackets and gets a consistent, well-structured job posting in seconds – every time. Build a "meta-template" – a template for creating templates. When you identify a new recurring task, fill in the meta-template to generate the first draft of your task template: "TASK TYPE: [task]. Fixed elements that never change: [list]. Variable elements that change each time: [list]. Constraints that always apply: [list]. Output format: [format]." Ask Claude to write the template for you, then refine it. Templates that generate external communications (emails, proposals, client-facing documents) should be reviewed before sending even when Claude's output is consistent. Templates that include sensitive categories – personnel communications, legal language, medical content, financial terms – should include a reminder in the usage notes to have the output reviewed before use. Identify three recurring tasks in your work or studies that you have used Claude for more than once. For the highest-frequency task, build a complete prompt template with variable placeholders. Test it with real data and note whether the output is consistently good or whether the template needs refinement. You should be able to build a working prompt template for any recurring task, explain the difference between fixed and variable components, and describe a system for storing and evolving your templates over time. Log in and enroll to take this lesson quiz.
Lesson 3: Building Reusable Prompt Templates
Lesson Objectives
Lesson Content
Practical Example
Lesser-Known Tip
Safety Notes
Practice Task
Completion Check
Lesson Quiz