Lesson 19 of 25
The Elimination of Mental Static (Cleanliness)
A typo in a technical term, a half-named person, a sentence whose grammar hides two requests inside one - each makes the model guess, and a guess is where a wrong answer comes from. Clean the noise out: spell the function name correctly, give the full name, and split a compound request into separate numbered instructions. Note that the fixes in this chapter are all shorter than the problems. Clarity is not the same as length.
The original prompts were written for this platform and need only tightening. The one addition worth making is grounding on the factual example: a half-identified author is exactly the ambiguity search resolves, and asking for a citation turns a confident answer into a checkable one.
- Full name first, then ask for a citation.
- Grounding does not resolve ambiguity - it sources it.
- Attach the article instead of pasting it.
- Number separate outputs explicitly.
- Send multi-section output to a Doc.
Instead of
Write a simple Javascript function that takes a JSON string and uses JSON.parse to turn it into an object, but make sure to include try...cacth for error handling.
Perplexity version
A JavaScript parser function. Attached: my existing utils.js, for style and naming. `JSON.parse` inside `try...catch`. Object on success, `null` on failure, error logged. Do not ground this in Search.
Instead of
Tell me about the famous author Narayan who wrote about a fictional town in south india.
Perplexity version
Brief biography of the author R. K. Narayan (1906-2001), then the significance of Malgudi, his fictional South Indian town, in his work. Ground it in Google Search and cite each source. Do not confuse him with any other Narayan.
Instead of
Summarize the article and tell me its main points and why its important.
Perplexity version
Use only the article I am attaching - do not search. Three numbered sections: 1. summary; 2. three main points, as a list; 3. why it matters, and to whom. Output to a Doc called "Article notes".