First prompts if you're a student

Ten first prompts for students. Tool-agnostic — they work in any chat assistant. The aim is to make AI a sharper version of you, not a replacement for you. The trick is to use it after you've thought, to test your thinking — not before, to skip it.

Paste, edit, adapt.

• 01
  Find an angle

  "I have to write about [topic]. What angle could I care about?"

• 02
  Outline first

  "Help me outline before I start drafting."

• 03
  Counterargument

  "What would a smart person who disagrees say?"

• 04
  Source hunt

  "Help me find real, citable sources on [topic]."

• 05
  Jargon decoder

  "Translate this academic paragraph into plain English."

• 06
  Summary test

  "Summarise my notes. Tell me what I actually understood."

• 07
  Exam questions

  "Ten exam-style questions on this material."

• 08
  Revision plan

  "Plan the next five days of revision for [exam]."

• 09
  Draft pushback

  "Read my essay like a sceptical marker. What's weak?"

• 10
  Talking points

  "Three minutes to present this. Draft talking points."

Two things to keep in mind

Verify the sources. AI invents citations all the time. The book that doesn't exist. The paper attributed to the wrong author. The page number that points to the wrong section. If you're going to cite it, find the source yourself first. The prompt above gets you a list to check, not a list to trust.

Check your school's policy. Most are working it out in real time. Some are clear. Some are not. The line between "AI as a tutor" and "AI did the work" matters — and you want to be on the right side of it before you submit, not after. If you're unsure, ask. Your tutor would rather you ask now than find out later.

If it didn't think, you didn't learn.