Mastering ChatGPT Prompting – And Using Voice To Text
One common misconception about ChatGPT is the idea that there’s a ‘perfect’ way to phrase prompts.
This notion often leads to confusion and frustration.
However, the reality is far from it. ChatGPT thrives on natural, conversational inputs.
The key lies not in memorizing a list of commands but in understanding how to communicate your ideas and needs effectively.
In fact, the real key lies in not thinking about this as ‘prompting’ at all. That’s too technical a term. Let’s think about it as ‘conversations’ instead.
So when having a conversation with ChatGP,T I find that following a pattern of background, details and revision help me get far more value and benefit.
Background, Detail, and Revision:
- Background and Context: Start by giving ChatGPT the scenario or the problem you’re working on. This scenario could be the reasons that you’re looking for help the goals that you are looking to achieve, and perhaps even what’s success looks like.
- Be Detailed and Thorough: Provide as much detail as possible. More information means more context for ChatGPT, which leads to more relevant and useful responses. Don’t assume that it knows what you were talking about or rely on it to provide the details… This is where you want to provide your perspective, your experience, and your expertise to help shape the work that you’ll do with ChatGPT.
- Embrace Revisions and Feedback: Remember, ChatGPT is a tool at your disposal. If the response isn’t quite what you expected, give feedback. Clarify, revise, and interact until you get the desired result.
That sounds like a lot of work – and by work – I mean a lot of typing.
When I read things like ‘give it more detail’, ‘give it more background’ and ‘give it more information’, my head instantly goes to that is a lot of typing.
If you’re like me, I don’t really want to spend a lot of time typing.
I find if I talk out loud, I tend to give more details and be more thorough and explore ideas than if I were typing.
This is where voice to text using ChatGPT has significantly changed my interactions with it.
Voice-to-Text: A Game Changer in ChatGPT Interactions
In my exploration, I found using voice-to-text on my iPad to interact with ChatGPT was a game-changer. Speaking thoughts out loud allows for more detailed, nuanced, and personal interactions. This approach not only saves time but also enhances the quality of the output you receive from ChatGPT.
I started with the microphone button on my iPad keyboard, and quickly learned three other ways to use voice with a ChatGPT:
- The voice-to-text button on iphone
- Using voice dictation on my Mac
- The voice-to-voice feature on the ChatGPT app
Microphone On Ipad and Iphone
If you are a Mac user of either a iPhone or iPad, you have probably seen the microphone on your keyboard and perhaps you haven’t used it all that often. The microphone on the keyboard is a voice dictation tool, which allows you to push the button talk to the phone and have words appear as if you were typing them.
As I use ChatGPT as a problem-solving partner for many things, I found the ability to speak out loud and be thorough and random in my thoughts and information that I provided it much easier and much more valuable when I started using this microphone dictation tool.
Voice To Voice On ChatGPT App
The voice enabled feature on the ChatGPT app for me was a surprise, because I wasn’t aware that the conversation that you’re having with the app actually translates into text when you’re done. That was a pleasant surprise. If you haven’t explored voice to voice on your ChatGPT app, I found this video to be helpful in introducing the feature, how to set it up and how to get the most from it.
You can do this with a computer too!
So it makes sense that your computer keyboard has a voice to transcription too many of us just don’t use it because we type on our computers. However, knowing how powerful voice to text was on my iPad and iPhone, I wanted to have that same level of convenience on my computer. In fact, as I’m writing this, I am talking to my computer rather than typing.
I have found instructions for both a PC and Mac and pasted them below in case you want to set this up and try it yourself.