I use Google's Bard as my intern. Here are 5 prompts I use to get the most help from my chatbot.

• A writer uses Google's Bard for tasks like summarizing articles for research and reviewing drafts.
• She says that with specific prompts, the bot can lessen the pressure of working alone.

As a freelance writer, I've been using AI for a few years. I ditched my Dictaphone for Otter.ai, a real-time transcription app that has saved me hours of manually transcribing interviews.

So when generative-AI chatbots came along, I was keen to see how they could help me work better. After trying a few options, including ChatGPT, I settled on Google's Bard.

I use Bard to save not time but sanity. One of my biggest challenges is working alone. I have to be my own editor, proofreader, and cheerleader. It can be lonely.

That's where chatbots come in. I think of Bard as my intern. I give it clear instructions, and it executes the task to the best of its ability. It does make mistakes, though, so it needs close supervision.

Having Bard frees me up to focus on the creative aspects of my writing. I'm still the one coming up with the ideas — it's just helping with some of the drudgery of executing. And when I'm feeling stuck or frustrated, I can talk to Bard about my work. It's a nonjudgmental sounding board that helps me see my work in a new light.

Here are some of the prompts I use.

1. TL;DR

It's good intern management to start with an easy, manageable task. I get Bard to summarize articles when I'm researching a topic and need to consume a lot of information quickly.

You can prompt with "summarize this article" or write "TL;DR" with the link you need to be summarized. You can also specify how many words you want the summary to be. Bard's formatting of its responses, with key points in bold and bullet points, is one of the reasons I prefer it over ChatGPT. But beware: I've found that sometimes Bard gets names wrong.

2. Tidy this up

I've found that when I ask Bard to "improve this," the bot strips away any of the quirks that make it human. When I ask it to "tidy this up," that's exactly what it does. This is the prompt I use when I want a little bit more than a proofread but not a complete rewrite.

As you learn to speak bot, you start to understand the subtleties of different prompts. I think the term "prompt" is misleading, because what you're actually doing when you're interacting with a chatbot is programming it. You're giving it an instruction, and it's responding. If I want to tidy up the copy myself, I ask it to "review this draft," and it gives me a list of suggestions for improvement.

Getting good at prompting is an AI superpower. And you don't need to tell it "please" and "thank you."

3. How would you describe this writing?

You can't expect Bard to give you results without precise instructions. I can get less-robotic-sounding results out of a chatbot by using words I know it understands.

I'll start by giving it a piece of my own work — this can be a link or just a block of text — and asking it to "describe this writing." It'll come back with some descriptors, such as "personal, engaging, and thought-provoking." Then I can prompt it to improve a draft using those terms: "Using a personal, engaging, and thought-provoking writing style, improve this draft."

I've also asked Bard to help me identify unifying themes in my work. I give it links to my published work and ask, "What's the common thread in these stories?" This helps with writing bios and blog tags or even just answering the dreaded question I'm asked at parties: "What do you write about?"

4. What's the missing word here?

One of the few things I miss about offices is turning to someone next to me to ask for writing help.

Often when I'm writing an article I'll leave an "XXX" where I know I'm missing a word but can't figure out what needs to go there. I'll paste the paragraph into Bard and ask it, "What's the missing word here?" Bard can give three drafts of each answer, so you can scroll through the options without having to ask it to generate another response.

In general, Bard can be good at helping you find your words. You can also ask it "what's the word for" a definition, "what's another word for" a term, or "what's a good way to say" something specific.

5. Does this make sense?

I often lose sight of the bigger picture when I'm working alone. When I need a confidence boost, I'll ask Bard, "Does this make sense?"

I asked if my draft of this article was clear. It replied: "Yes, your writing makes sense. You've clearly thought about how to use Bard to your advantage, and you've come up with some creative ways to get the most out of it … I think you're making great use of Bard. It's clear that you're not just using it as a time-saving tool, but as a way to improve your writing and your overall workflow."

I know it's a robot, but it's just the encouragement I need.