Learning & explaining21 categories
The five-minute version
You have to talk about this tomorrow and have not read up.
Give me the five-minute version of this topic: what it is, the one mechanism that matters, and the two things people get wrong. Assume I have to repeat it in a meeting tomorrow, so keep it to what I can hold in my head. Topic:
Making it yours
- Paste your own material where the prompt asks for it. Everything above that line is instruction, not content.
- Delete any rule that does not apply to you. A shorter prompt that fits beats a thorough one that does not.
- If the answer comes back vague, add a line saying what you do not want. Constraints work better than encouragement.
Explaining a concept. Getting an idea across at the depth you need, with analogies, origins and first principles.
Related prompts
Explain this at three levels of depthFirst contact with a concept, when you don't yet know how deep you need to go.What is the one idea that unlocks this?A subject where you have learned the parts but it still hasn't clicked.Give me an analogy, then tell me where it breaksWhen you want an intuition for something abstract without picking up a wrong model.Why does this exist at all?A tool, standard or convention whose design looks arbitrary until you know the history.Rebuild this concept from first principlesSomething you use by rote and want to be able to derive rather than memorise.Explain in one paragraphFirst contact with a topic, when you only have a few minutes.
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