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Crafting Effective Prompts for Copilot

Lesson 2: Context and Constraints – The Two Highest-Leverage Components

Lesson Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

  • Write context that answers the four key background questions
  • Apply at least six types of constraints in their prompts
  • Distinguish between useful and unnecessary context
  • Recognize when a constraint is implicit vs. when it must be explicit

Lesson Content

Writing rich context: the four questions.

Strong context answers four questions:

  1. Who are you? (Role, experience level, industry)
  2. What is the situation? (Specific context of this task)
  3. Who is the audience? (Who receives or is affected by the output)
  4. What is the goal? (What outcome you are trying to achieve)

With all four answered, Copilot has enough context to produce output that fits your specific situation – not a generically correct response to a generically described task.

What NOT to include in context.

Context should be relevant. Including irrelevant personal history or excessive organizational detail clutters the prompt without improving the output. If removing a piece of context would not change what Copilot produces, it probably does not need to be there.

The six most valuable constraint types.

  1. Length constraints: "Under 150 words." / "No more than three bullet points."
  2. Tone constraints: "Professional but warm." / "Direct and confident – no hedging."
  3. Exclusion constraints: "Do not mention competitor products." / "Avoid technical jargon."
  4. Inclusion constraints: "Must include a clear call to action." / "Include at least one specific example."
  5. Format constraints: "Use headers." / "No bullet points – write in prose."
  6. Accuracy constraints: "Flag any claim you are uncertain about." / "Note where my specific jurisdiction might affect this."

Implicit vs. explicit constraints.

Constraints that depend on context you know but have not shared must be stated explicitly. "This is for a very conservative donor audience" needs to be stated – Copilot has no way to know your audience's sensibility without being told. When in doubt, state it.

Practical Example

A nonprofit director needs to draft a fundraising appeal after a difficult year.

Without strong context and constraints, the generic request produces generic fundraising copy.

With them: context establishes the difficult year, the donor relationship, and the communication goal.

Constraints explicitly exclude guilt-based language, spin, and unverifiable promises – the exact patterns Copilot might otherwise default to.

The output is honest, forward-looking, and appropriate for her donor relationships.

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