How To Use AI
Creating a Document in a Specific Style
Services: Copilot, Copilot 365, ChatGPT
GenAI services are capable of providing their output in the specific format you desire. The best way to do this is to use a strategy called 'few-shot prompting.' Few-shot prompting is the strategy of providing several examples of the output you are looking for to the AI service to teach it the format or style you are expecting. For more information on few-shot prompting, see our Prompt Engineering Guide. For example, if you wanted the AI service to output a description of a landscape with two emojis at the beginning and end, and with the first clause capitalized, you could enter the following prompt:
Describe in two sentences a landscape with snow and mountains as
an introduction to a novel
🏔️ ❄️ THE WORLD LAY PRISTINE, cloaked in a resplendent blanket of
white, as majestic peaks pierced the sky, silent sentinels watching
over the vast, frozen wilderness. This was a realm where winter
reigned eternal, a place of extraordinary beauty as stark and harsh
as it was breathtaking. 🏔️ ❄️
Describe in two sentences a landscape with snow and mountains as
an introduction to a novel
🏔️ ❄️ BENEATH THE VAST INDIGO SKY, the mountains stood, their snow-
capped peaks gleaming like diamonds against the soft blush of dawn.
This was a landscape of stark contrasts, where silence echoed with
a profound depth, and the frozen wilderness shimmered with an
ethereal beauty that was both mesmerising and merciless. 🏔️ ❄️
Describe in two sentences a landscape with snow and mountains as
an introduction to a novelNote that nowhere in this prompt is it explicitly stated that the output should have specific capitalization and emojis; however, because we provided several examples that all followed the precise formatting we wanted, the AI service recognizes the format and follows it.
AI services don't just recognize format; they also recognize style, tone, and word choice. If you provide several examples of writing in the style that you are looking for, the AI service will replicate that style In its output. The following prompt provides several examples of BYU mission statements. When provided this prompt, the AI service will replicate the format, style, and tone of those statements.
Describe in one sentence a mission statement for a committee at
Brigham Young University
**Mission Statement**: Embracing the transformative potential
of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the ad-hoc AI Committee provides
University leadership with recommendations and direction on AI
guidelines and policies. *(BYU)*
Describe in one sentence a mission statement for a committee at
Brigham Young University
**Mission Statement**: The Administrative Advisory Council (AAC)
is a committee of full-time BYU administrative and staff employees
whose purpose is to serve as a liaison between the university's
administration and support staff. *(BYU)*
Describe in one sentence a mission statement for a committee at
Brigham Young University focusing on campus safety and health
**Mission Statement**: The Campus Safety, Health, and Environmental
Committee monitors the university's non-academic areas for compliance
with environmental, health and safety programs regulated by local,
state, and federal agencies. *(BYU)*
Describe in one sentence a mission statement for a committee at
Brigham Young University focusing on enterprise architecture. You may notice the use of asterisks in the above prompt to provide formatting. Those come from a way of representing formatting in plain text known as Markdown. AI services can understand markdown formatting better due to the fact that it is easier to parse than rich formatting. The table below shows some common types of formatting.
| Element | Plain Text (what you type) | Formatted Text (after computer interprets plain text) |
| Bold | **Bold** | Bold |
| Italics | *Italics* | Italics |
| Headings | # Heading 1 # Heading 2 # Heading 3 | Heading 1Heading 2Heading 3 |
| Ordered List | List 1. Item 1 2. Item 2 3. Item 3 | List
|
| Unordered List | List - Item 1 - Item 2 - Item 3 | List
|
| Link | [Link Name](www.lnk.com) | Link |
| Horizontal Line | ———————— | _____________________ |
| Prevent Formatting | /*Text/* | *Text* |
Find out other practical ways to use generative AI with our other guides located on the right side of the page.