The Secret Behind My Latest Blog Post: ChatGPT Did the Heavy Lifting

Have you ever wondered how you could streamline your content creation process? Look no further! In this blog post, I'll reveal the secret behind my latest article: using OpenAI's ChatGPT to do the heavy lifting for me.

Mock Data & Stubs (Fake it till you make it)

Oryan Moshe ・ May 7 ・ 11 min read

#beginners #programming #career #coding

In this article, I'll explain how working iteratively with ChatGPT transformed my content creation process and made it more efficient than ever before.

Why the Iterative Method Outshines Traditional Prompting

ChatGPT, specifically GPT-4, is a powerful AI language model capable of generating human-like text. Most people use it by giving it a single prompt and waiting for the generated text. However, this "one-shot" approach often results in content that isn't quite what they were hoping for. That's where the iterative method comes in.

The iterative method is a more collaborative approach, involving working with ChatGPT step-by-step. It allows for continuous feedback and improvement, resulting in higher quality content that aligns better with your vision. In the following sections, I'll detail my journey of teaching ChatGPT my writing style, refining its understanding of the subject, and incorporating helpful prompts to create a well-structured, coherent blog post.

Teaching ChatGPT Your Writing Style

For a more personalized and natural-sounding article, it's essential to teach ChatGPT your unique writing style. To do this, you can provide the AI with examples of your previous work. The more examples you give, the better ChatGPT will be able to emulate your voice.

In our case, I instructed ChatGPT to request more example articles until it felt confident that it could mimic my writing style. I also provided the context that the AI is an engineer who loves to write technical blog posts.

Here's a simple process for teaching ChatGPT your style:

1. Gather a few samples of your writing that you feel accurately represent your "voice" (writing style)
2. Provide these samples as context to ChatGPT at the beginning of the conversation.
3. Instruct ChatGPT to request more examples if it needs them to better understand your writing style.
4. Throughout the iterative process, give feedback on the generated content, pointing out where the AI succeeded or missed the mark in capturing your style.

By consistently providing feedback and guidance, you'll help ChatGPT to fine-tune its understanding of your writing style, and the generated content will begin to sound more like you.

Instructing ChatGPT to Ask Questions for Better Understanding

Another key aspect of our iterative approach to working with ChatGPT is getting the AI to ask questions for better understanding. Instead of relying solely on your initial input, you can encourage ChatGPT to seek clarification and gather more information about the topic.

This strategy not only helps the AI produce more accurate and relevant content but also fosters a more interactive and collaborative experience between you and ChatGPT.

To instruct ChatGPT to ask questions, follow these steps:

1. In your initial conversation, mention that you want ChatGPT to ask questions if it needs more information or clarification.
2. As you work through the iterative process, provide the AI with answers to its questions and use this information to refine the generated content.
3. Encourage ChatGPT to continue asking questions if it's still unclear about certain aspects of the topic or your preferences.

By engaging in a back-and-forth dialogue with ChatGPT, you'll create a more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter, resulting in a higher quality article.

Orchestrating ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Grammarly Together

As with any content writing team, one person can't do it all. We leverage the power of several tools to create the perfect writing team.

Improving Prompt Clarity with Grammarly

To ensure that ChatGPT receives the best prompts possible and works more effectively, we use Grammarly, an AI-powered writing assistant, to improve the clarity of our prompts before sending them to ChatGPT. Remember, garbage in - garbage out.

Here's how to use Grammarly to improve the clarity of your prompts:

1. Open Grammarly's editor.
2. Write your prompt intended for ChatGPT directly in the editor.
3. Review and apply Grammarly's suggestions to enhance the clarity and quality of your prompt.
4. Keep a history of your prompts in Grammarly for future reference.

By refining your prompts with Grammarly, you ensure that ChatGPT has a clear understanding of your requirements and can generate better results.

Generating Midjourney Prompts

ChatGPT can be used effectively for generating prompts for other AI tools, such as Midjourney. Midjourney is an AI image generator that creates custom visuals based on text prompts.

For many tasks, ChatGPT can create content perfectly on its own. However, ChatGPT sometimes provides invalid URLs for images and cannot be trusted with these tasks. Instead, I instructed ChatGPT to generate a description of the image using a "PIC-PROMPT " whenever an image is necessary. Then, I can use Midjourney or search online to find the perfect visual based on the description provided by ChatGPT.

Practical Prompt Examples and Tips for Effective ChatGPT Collaboration

In this section, we will go through some practical prompt examples and share useful tips to make your collaboration with ChatGPT more effective.

Prompt Examples

• Context: When you start out, you need to provide ChatGPT with a context of what it is and what the goals are. Use a prompt like this:

You are a hands-on, highly Pragmatic Programmer who loves to write technical blog posts about your endeavors as a <your role> of a company called <your company>.
Your blog posts are funny and light-hearted but as technical as you can get them while staying relatable.
Your goal is to help me create blog posts about different topics, trying your best to mimic the way I write blog posts.
These articles will be published on dev.to, medium.com, and LinkedIn.

I will feed you a few of my previous blog posts (in markdown format) so you can learn how I usually write.
How many posts are required?

When you're ready, ask me for the first blog-post example.

• Content Styling: Now that ChatGPT has asked us for our first example, we need to provide it with as much information as possible, while making sure it remembers to keep the feedback loop going. Here is a prompt that worked for me:

I'll now provide the first blog post. After reading it, tell me that you understood it, and then (when you're ready) ask me for the next blog post. If you have learned enough, tell me you don't need another post. When we reach that point, ask me what topic I'd like my next blog post to be about.

The first blog post was published on <website and date>
It has XXX reads, XXX reactions, and XXX comments.
The article's title is: <article title here>
I tagged the article as <tags here>.
Here is the content in markdown format:
<article content here>

• Setting the Foundations: Eventually, ChatGPT will tell you it has learned enough. At this point, we want it to drive the process. To do this, we instruct it to ask questions, like so:

Ask me up to 10 questions to help guide you to write my next blog posts. The questions can refer to the new blog post topic, specific info needed, or my writing style and goals. So ask me *everything you need* to write my next blog post as best as possible.

• Involving ChatGPT: Now, ChatGPT will ask you several questions, probably about the topic of your next article, the target audience, format, objectives, etc. Answer these questions, and make sure you keep encouraging ChatGPT to ask you questions and get involved throughout the whole process like so:

Here are the answers to these questions:
<answers here>

Also, the title I had in mind was "<possible title here>". Feel free to suggest another title if you have a better one.

If you feel like you need more information, you can ask me up to 5 more questions (you don't have to use them all, only ask for help if you need it)
Now, we can do this in 1 of 2 ways:
1. We'll write it together incrementally - you'll send a segment of the article, we'll work on it, and then move on to the next iteratively
2. You'll send me a draft, I'll provide feedback, and then you send me a fixed draft, and so on

Which of these 2 approaches do you prefer?

• Content Formatting & Triggering Generation: Usually, ChatGPT will pick approach 1, but remember you can change these prompts to fit your preference. Now we need to describe how ChatGPT formats the text it generates, and trigger the first generation like so:

Sure, we can go with approach 1.
If you have any other questions, please ask me up to 5.
If not, please provide me with the first segment to go over.

From now on, all content related to the article should be formatted as markdown and sent in a code block to allow me to read it.
Add a horizontal line ("---") between the different sections of the post to separate them better.
Whenever you want to represent a code block in the article, instead of using the markdown notation, please wrap the code block with:
^^<syntax language here>^^
...
$$<syntax language here>$$
Instead of images and gifs, add a "PIC-PROMPT <prompt for Midjourney here>" everywhere you deem fit. Midjourney prompts usually start with "/imagine <rest of prompt>".

• Iterate & Improve: ChatGPT will send you the first part of your blog post, read it thoroughly (remember, ChatGPT can help with content creation, but we need to manually validate every word), send feedback for revisions, and once you're happy, tell ChatGPT to move on to the next segment. Remember to constantly remind ChatGPT it can ask you questions.

Tips & Tricks for Effective Collaboration

1. Be specific with your prompts: Provide clear and concise instructions to help ChatGPT understand what you want.
2. Iterate on the generated content: Don't hesitate to revise and refine the content generated by ChatGPT until it meets your expectations.
3. Leverage ChatGPT's ability to ask questions: Encourage ChatGPT to ask you questions for a better understanding of the subject matter.
4. Use external tools like Grammarly: Improve the clarity of your prompts using AI-powered writing assistants like Grammarly before sending them to ChatGPT.
5. Understand the limitations: Sometimes, some of the content generated is not up to our standards. Usually, we can ask ChatGPT to revise it, but if the fix is easy, it's usually faster to fix it yourself and then tell ChatGPT "Here's the segment I ended up using:" so it keeps learning your writing style. Don't get stuck on trying to make ChatGPT do what you want, if it's faster to just do it yourself.
6. Hone your skill: As with any tool, ChatGPT has a learning curve. Refine your skills and learn how to handle unexpected scenarios. For instance, when ChatGPT stops mid-answer, you could simply prompt it with Continue., but a more effective prompt might be: You got cut-off, continue from "<cut-off section>". Remember your formatting rules, and keep all content inside of a code block.

By following these tips and using the practical prompt examples, you can make your collaboration with ChatGPT more effective and efficient, ultimately creating high-quality content for your blog posts.

Addressing Common Misconceptions and Concerns

When it comes to using ChatGPT for content creation, some people might have misconceptions or concerns about the process. In this segment, we'll address some of the most common misconceptions and concerns, and help you understand how to overcome them.

1. Time-intensive process: Many people believe that creating blog posts with ChatGPT is time-consuming, but once you've mastered the process of working with the AI, you can actually save time compared to writing everything by yourself. The key is to be patient and invest time in learning how to effectively communicate with and instruct the AI.
2. Difficulty in forming coherent content: Some users might struggle with creating coherent blog posts using ChatGPT because they try to generate the entire post in a single shot, instead of working iteratively with the AI. By following the iterative process that we've outlined in this article, you can ensure that the content is well-structured and coherent.
3. Limited creativity: AI-generated content might be perceived as lacking creativity or a personal touch. However, by providing specific examples, context, and guidance to ChatGPT, you can infuse your writing style and personality into the generated content. Remember, the more you work with the AI, the better it becomes at understanding your preferences and mimicking your writing style.
4. Dependency on AI: Some people might worry about becoming too dependent on AI for content creation. While it's true that ChatGPT is a powerful tool, it's essential to strike a balance between AI-assisted writing and your own writing skills. You should always review and revise the content generated by the AI, ensuring that it meets your standards and retains your personal touch.

By addressing these misconceptions and concerns, you can make the most of ChatGPT and leverage its capabilities to create high-quality content for your blog posts.

Conclusion: Enhancing Your Blogging Process with ChatGPT

Leveraging the power of ChatGPT, you can create compelling and high-quality blog posts that resonate with your readers. By following the tips, tricks, and examples provided in this article, you'll be able to make the most of your collaboration with ChatGPT and streamline your blogging process.

Remember to:

1. Provide clear and concise prompts to guide the AI.
2. Use an iterative approach to create coherent and well-structured content.
3. Encourage ChatGPT to ask questions and actively participate in the content creation process.
4. Review and revise the generated content to ensure it meets your standards and retains your personal touch.

With patience and practice, you'll master the art of working with ChatGPT to create engaging and informative blog posts that reflect your unique writing style and voice.

Embrace the power of AI and revolutionize your blogging process with ChatGPT, happy writing!