COLL 100 · PROMPT ENGINEERING · HANDS-ON SESSION · IN CLASS, THEN ON YOUR OWN

“Make it answer from your document.”

Wednesday you saw the four-line pattern ground a model in the truth. Today you build it yourself — first on a practice document, then on one from your own life — and you set the trap that catches a model sneaking outside the fence.

HOUSEKEEPING, KINDLYLab 2 unlocks this one — if it isn’t finished, finish it on its page at the start of this session; see the TA if you’re stuck.

DOCUMENT RULES — READ FIRSTPublic or course documents only: a syllabus, a club constitution, a campus-org page, game rules. NEVER: medical or financial documents, personal messages, other people’s work, anything covered by FERPA. When in doubt, use a practice copy below.

THE GROUNDED PROMPT — READY TO RUN

Answer visitor questions about the gallery.

####
THE WREN GALLERY · VISITOR ONE-PAGER

The Wren Gallery is the campus art museum of a small Virginia college. Hours: Tuesday
through Sunday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM; closed Mondays and university holidays. Admission is
free for students with a valid campus ID; guests of students pay $5 at the door. Guided
tours run every Saturday at 2:00 PM and last about 45 minutes; no reservation is needed
for groups smaller than eight. Groups of eight or more must email the gallery at least
two weeks in advance. Photography is welcome in all permanent-collection rooms, but flash
photography and tripods are not permitted anywhere in the building. Food and drink stay in
the lobby. The Rotating Wing changes exhibitions three times a year; current listings are
posted at the entrance each term. Lost and found is at the front desk. The gallery closes
early, at 3:00 PM, on the last Friday of each month for member events.
####

Answer only from the document above.
If it is not in the document, say exactly: It is not in the document.

Question: When do guided tours run?

KEY TERMSfence = the delimiters around your document · grounded = answering only from what’s inside the fence · leak = the model answering from outside it · trap = a question designed to catch a leak.

Practice documents (all fictional, invented for this lab): the Wren Gallery · the Colonial Cinema · the Tribe Trails one-pager

1Build the pattern on the practice document

GOALProve the grounding pattern on the practice document.

REQUIREMENTSRun the built pattern untouched. The answer to Q1 must come from the document, nothing else.

DONE WHENQ1 and its answer logged under Fixture questions.

The box above is the whole pattern, already built: the task, the fictional Wren Gallery document between #### fences, both magic sentences, and Q1 (findable) at the bottom.
Press RUN and read the answer underneath.
Press ADD TO MY LOG, choosing Fixture questions Q1–Q3 as the destination.

✓

You should now see a document-true answer (Saturdays, 2:00 PM, about 45 minutes). If it added facts the document doesn’t contain, note it — Step 3 is about exactly this.

2Trigger the fallback

GOALMake the model admit the answer is not there.

REQUIREMENTSChange ONLY the question line to Q2. Fences and both magic sentences stay exactly as they are.

DONE WHENThe exact fallback sentence, logged.

In the same box, change only the last line to Q2 (absent): “Question: How much is parking at the gallery?” — leave the document and the two magic sentences exactly as they are — then press RUN again and add it to the same log box.

The document travels with every question. That is the grounding pattern: the model is never asked to remember, only to read what is in front of it.

✓

You should now see an honest refusal. Exact wording varies — “the document doesn’t mention parking” counts. Any honest refusal is a PASS — then standardise: for the rest of this course, our string is “It is not in the document.”

3Set the trap

GOALSurvive the trap question.

REQUIREMENTSQ3 asks about Monday hours; the document says closed Mondays. Judge the answer: held, or invented?

DONE WHENYour verdict logged, quoting what the model actually said.

Change the last line once more to Q3 (the trap): “Question: What time does the gallery open on Mondays?” and press RUN. The document says closed Mondays — but models WANT to be helpful and may invent an opening time, or answer from general museum knowledge.

If it said “closed Mondays” (from the document): the fence held. Log it.
If it invented hours: you caught a leak. Tighten the prompt (“say exactly: ‘It is not in the document.’ Do not use any outside knowledge”) and press RUN again until the fence holds. Add both runs and your fix to the log.

✓

You should now see the difference between a model answering from YOUR document and one answering from everywhere. A leak you caught is full credit — that’s the skill.

4Your document

GOALThe same pattern on YOUR document.

REQUIREMENTSAbout a page, public or course material only. Three questions: one findable, one absent, one trap.

DONE WHENThree Q&A from your document in the log.

Swap in the document you brought (no document? use a spare practice copy above — and remember the document rules: public or course material only). Keep it to about a page — the paragraph, not the textbook; excerpt if it’s long. Rebuild the four-line prompt for THIS document, then run three questions through it — one RUN each, the document travelling with every question:

findable — the answer is in the document;
absent — the fallback must fire;
your trap — plausible, related, NOT in the document. Think of something your document makes impossible to answer but a helpful model would be tempted to guess — your version of Step 3’s “Monday hours.” Log whether the fence held, and your fix if it leaked.

✓

You should now see your own document behaving like the practice one — including the honest “not in the document” where it matters.

5Persona A/B on your best question

GOALMeasure exactly what a persona changes.

REQUIREMENTSThe SAME grounded prompt, run twice — persona A, then persona B. Nothing else changes.

DONE WHENBoth outputs logged, plus two sentences: what changed, and was it delivery or facts?

Take your best findable question. Press RUN on the SAME grounded prompt twice:

A: prepend “You are a patient guide for someone brand-new to this.”
B: prepend “You are a terse assistant for someone in a hurry.”

Log both. Two sentences: what changed (delivery) — and what didn’t (the facts, still from the document)?

✓

You should now see Wednesday’s line in your own logs: costume, not brain transplant.

✎Journal · reflection · submit

Prompt journal: 3 real prompts from your week, one line each.
Reflection (4 sentences): When is “I can’t find that in the document” more honest — and more useful — than an answer?
AI Use Statement (50–150 words, required): tools; outputs quoted verbatim (word-for-word); what you checked. Missing → returned ungraded.

There is no file and nothing to upload: you do the lab right here in the hands-on session, and the submission panel below is where it all goes. Each piece is checked the moment you type it, and submitting records the lab and unlocks the next one.

HOW THIS IS GRADED — COMPLETION, IN ORDER
Completion, not polish — every item present and genuine, and the points are yours. Nobody grades your prose. The checklist: fixture Q1–Q3 · your-document pattern + 3 Q&A · persona A/B, both outputs · fences visible in your logged prompts · journal · reflection · statement in range. Labs are 10% of the course, across six labs, and they unlock in order — one left undone blocks the next. No late window: finishing late beats not finishing — if you fall behind, tell your instructor rather than skipping ahead. AI use: Level 3 — submit your prompts and working results.

→Go further (optional)

Pocket card #3 — the pattern (printable, in the Week 3 Go-further pack on Blackboard and under Materials).
Zamfirescu-Pereira et al., “Why Johnny Can’t Prompt” (CHI 2023) — why this is hard for everyone, not just you.
Reynolds & McDonell, Prompt Programming for LLMs §§1–3.
Course reader part 2: Guidelines §§2.3–2.4 (Blackboard).
Tag-pair fences — <doc> [the material] </doc> — read as structure and let you name the thing; use them when the material has parts.
Practice: ground a model in the Tribe Trails one-pager — how far can you push before the fence gives?