Make AI Text Clearer with ChatGPT's Simplified English & ADHD Prompts
Job to be done: Improve readability and conciseness of AI-generated text
🇳🇬 Ways to use this in Nigeria
Ideas to get you started, adapt to your situation.
- Student
Get clear, bullet-point summaries of lengthy research articles for your final year project, making complex information easier to digest.
- Small business
Generate clear, bullet-point replies to common customer questions on WhatsApp or Instagram, making your service explanations easy to understand.
- 9-5 employee
Summarize lengthy company policy documents or project reports into clear, actionable bullet points for your team meetings.
What you’ll get
You will get AI-generated text that is significantly easier to read, understand, and more concise. This approach works by guiding the AI to adopt a clear, structured writing style, helping you avoid jargon and overly complex sentences in its responses.
Tools you need
- ChatGPT (freemium): An AI chatbot used to generate and refine text.
Steps
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Open ChatGPT settings: Access the custom instructions feature within ChatGPT. On your phone or computer, open ChatGPT. Click on your profile picture (or initials) in the bottom left corner of the screen. Then, select ‘Custom instructions’ from the menu. You should see a screen with two text boxes for custom instructions.
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Add the first instruction: Tell ChatGPT to use a specific writing standard. In the second text box, labeled “How would you like ChatGPT to respond?”, paste the following instruction:
Always talk in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English.ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English is a writing standard that makes technical information easier to read, understand, and translate. You should see the instruction saved in the text box.
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Add the second instruction: Tell ChatGPT to be concise and structured. In the same text box, on a new line, paste the following instruction:
Always talk to me like I have ADHD.This instruction helps the AI provide more succinct bullet points and clear headers, making the text easy to skim. You should see both instructions now present in the text box.
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Save your custom instructions: Apply the changes so they take effect. Click the “Save” button, usually located at the bottom of the custom instructions screen. You should see a confirmation that your custom instructions are active, and the settings screen will close.
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Start a new chat and test: Ask ChatGPT to generate or rewrite some text. Start a new chat and give ChatGPT a task, for example, “Explain what a Chrome extension is.” or “Summarize this article for me.” ChatGPT’s response should be noticeably clearer, more concise, and easier to read, using simpler language and possibly bullet points or clear headings.
Original source
This workflow is inspired by a tip from Ben’s Bites, a popular AI newsletter. The author, Ben Tossell, shared these custom instructions as a way to make AI outputs more readable and less ‘sloppy’ for everyday use.
Notes & variations
- Common mistake: The author notes that simply telling the AI “I’m not technical” can sometimes lead to overly simplistic analogies that are harder to understand than the original text. The combination of Simplified Technical English and the ADHD prompt avoids this pitfall by focusing on structure and clarity over forced analogies.
- Tip for better results: If you find the output still too technical for a specific response, you can explicitly ask the AI in the chat itself to “simplify this further” or “explain this like I’m 10 years old” for that particular interaction. You can also experiment with adding one more specific instruction to your custom instructions related to your typical use case, such as “Always use Nigerian English where appropriate.”