What ChatGPT is

ChatGPT is a conversational interface to a family of large language models built by OpenAI. It reads what you type, holds a rolling context of the conversation, and generates a response one token at a time. It is not a database and does not have a permanent memory of you unless memory features are explicitly enabled.

ChatGPT is a product of OpenAI. Glintr provides independent learning programs and educational content around the use of AI tools.

Why prompts matter

Because ChatGPT generates responses statistically from your input, small differences in wording change the output. A vague prompt produces a generic answer. A specific prompt produces something usable.

Compare:

  • "Write me an email." — will produce a generic template.
  • "Write a two-paragraph email to a supplier asking to delay next month's delivery by two weeks. Polite, no apology, keep it under 120 words." — produces something you can send.

The three parts of a useful prompt

  1. Role or perspective — who ChatGPT should respond as: "You are an editor reviewing my draft for clarity."
  2. Task — what you want done, in one sentence.
  3. Constraints and format — length, tone, structure, examples to avoid.

Optional but powerful:

  • Context — paste in the source material rather than describing it.
  • Examples — one or two examples of the output style you want.

Context is everything

ChatGPT does not know what is on your screen, what your company does, or what you decided yesterday. If it needs that information to answer well, put it in the prompt. Pasting a document and asking a specific question about it is almost always better than asking the question in the abstract.

Prompts that work for common tasks

Drafting "Write a first draft of a project update for internal stakeholders. Cover: what shipped, what slipped, what we need decisions on. Bullet lists. Under 200 words. Tone: direct, no marketing language."

Summarising "Summarise the following meeting notes into (1) decisions, (2) action items with owners, (3) open questions. Keep exact names as written."

Rewriting "Rewrite the paragraph below to be one sentence shorter and more direct. Keep the technical terms."

Structured extraction "From the transcript below, extract every mentioned company name and the sentence it appears in. Return as a two-column table."

Common mistakes

  • Asking for creativity when you want accuracy. Ask for accuracy explicitly.
  • Not pasting the source material.
  • Accepting the first answer. Iteration is part of the workflow.
  • Trusting citations without verifying — ChatGPT can invent them.

Where to go next

Frequently asked questions

Is ChatGPT always right? No. Treat it as a fast assistant, not an authority.

Can it read my files? Only if you paste content or attach files inside a session that supports uploads.

What is a token? A chunk of text — roughly a word or part of a word. Both your input and the response consume tokens.