How to write prompt words for AI report writing: instructions and speech templates

Key points of this article

The report prompt word must at least describe the reader, purpose, chapter structure, length, and tone. If any of these are missing, the AI will guess on its own.
The structure should use numbered listings of first-level headings and questions to be answered in each section, which is much more effective than just saying "Write professionally."
The materials should be given along with the instructions, and the AI is required to only use the given data, and the missing parts should be marked to be supplemented.
Let AI output the outline first, and then expand it chapter by chapter after confirmation, which can reduce the rework of the entire article.
After generating content, the correspondence between numbers, citations and chapters must be checked, and important information must be reviewed manually.

When many people ask AI to write a report for the first time, they only enter the sentence "Write a market analysis report for me", and the results they get are often very general: the chapters do not match, the data is empty, and the length does not meet expectations. The problem is usually not the lack of AI capabilities, but that the prompt word only mentions the topic, but does not explain who the reader is, what the report is supposed to answer, how the structure is arranged, and how long each part is to be written.

This article only talks about one thing: how to clearly describe the instructions and structure of the report and let AI write it. It does not compare tools, nor does it talk about file layout. It only focuses on what you write in the dialog box. After reading it, you should be able to write a report prompt that you can use over and over again, and know how to check that the AI is doing what it's asked to do.

When writing a report for AI, what information should be included in the prompt word? One sentence conclusion

The prompt word must have at least five items: reader, purpose, structure, length and tone. If one is missing, the AI will guess on its own. The table below can help you determine how to write in different scenarios.

your situation	Recommended practices	reason
Internal weekly or progress reports	Indicate readers, to-do list for the week, and fixed chapters	Internal documents focus on complete information, with fixed chapters for easy comparison from issue to issue.
Formal analysis report to client or leader	State the purpose of the report, core conclusions, data sources and chapter levels	Formal reports require conclusions first, and AI needs to know where to put the conclusions.
Academic or technical reports	Specify terminology, citation format, and questions to be answered in each section	The terminology and caliber are not unified, and the cost of later modification is very high.
Want to apply the structure of the old report	Paste the table of contents of the old report and explain what to keep and what to replace	Structural examples are more accurate than textual descriptions
The materials haven’t been sorted out yet	Let AI make an outline first, and then expand the text after confirmation	When the outline is wrong, the text will have to be reworked no matter how long it is.

Before you start: Confirm these points first

Who is the reader. The same data is written to the technical leader and to the management, but the focus is completely different. Only by writing the reader's identity into the prompt word can AI decide which content to expand and which content to compress.
Report questions to be answered. The report is not a pile of information. The questions it wants to answer determine the choice of chapters. Once 2 to 3 core issues are clarified, AI will not be easy to write down in a running account.
Where the materials come from. AI can only write based on the content you provide. When the information is not provided, it will supplement content that seems reasonable. The prompt should require "Only use the data I provided, and mark the missing parts to be added."
Length and format boundaries. Without specifying the number of words and chapters, the length of AI is uncontrollable. Just give an approximate total word count and the relative proportion of each chapter.
Whether it is necessary to generate files directly. If you want AI to directly output Word, PDF or PPT files, the AI assistant needs to be connected to OmniDoc through MCP, so that the output type can be specified in the prompt word. When not connected, AI can only give text content in the conversation, and you can copy it to the editor yourself.

Step by step to write the report command in the dialogue

The steps below apply to any general-purpose chatbot, as well as to an AI assistant plugged into OmniDoc.

Write a sentence task. Describe the topic, purpose, and audience of the report, for example, "Please write a customer churn analysis report for this quarter for company management."
List the core questions. Use 2 to 3 paragraphs to write down the questions that the report wants to answer, such as "Which customer groups are the churn mainly concentrated in?" "What are the reasons?" "What should be prioritized in the next quarter?"
Describe the chapter structure. List the first-level headings with numbers, and use one sentence after each section to describe the question to be answered, such as "2. Churn Overview: Give the overall churn rate and year-on-year changes."
Allocate space to each section. Indicate the total number of words and give an approximate proportion of each chapter, for example, "The conclusion takes up about a quarter of the entire text."
Specify tone and wording. For example, "Use formal written language, avoid spoken language and marketing-style expressions, and add comments for professional terms that appear for the first time."
Give materials and set taboos. Paste the data or abstract and write "Do not make up data, cases and references, and mark missing numbers with [to be added]".
It is required to output in two rounds. In the first round, only the outline and key points of each section are output. After confirmation, you will be asked to expand the text chapter by chapter.
Specify the format when a file is required. At the end of the prompt word, indicate the output type as Word or PowerPoint, etc., and confirm that the AI assistant has connected to OmniDoc through MCP, and it calls the tool to generate the file.

The speech template that can be directly applied here is: "Please write a [Report Type] for [Reader], to answer the following questions: [Question 1] [Question 2]. The structure is as follows: 1. ... (questions to be answered); 2. .... The total number of words is about [number], of which [a certain chapter] accounts for about [proportion]. The tone is formal, only use the materials I provided, and missing data are marked with [to be added]. Please output the outline first, and I will expand the text after I confirm it."

Check each item after completion

After getting the results, do not use them directly. Check them item by item against the table below.

Check items	How to see	What to do if there is a problem
Are the chapters complete?	Check each item against the numbering structure you gave.	Re-send the missing chapters and key points to AI and ask for them to be rewritten
Is the data source reliable?	Check whether each number can be found in the materials you provided	Delete unsourced figures, or rewrite the paragraph after adding original material
Does the conclusion answer the question?	See if the end of each section corresponds to the core questions you listed	Point out the deviating paragraph and ask for it to be rewritten around the original question
Are the length and proportion reasonable?	Roughly estimate whether the number of words in each chapter is close to the set ratio	Specify the chapters that need to be expanded or compressed, and request modifications respectively.
Are the terms and titles consistent?	When reading through, pay attention to whether the same concept is worded differently before and after it.	List a glossary of terms in the prompt words and require uniform replacement in the entire text
Does important information require manual review?	Numbers, dates, citations, policy clauses, etc. are compared with the original data one by one.	Modifications are based on the original data; machine-generated content must be manually verified before it can be used externally.

📊 Core comparison

There are two main ways to give instructions to AI, and the applicable scenarios are different.

Way	advantage	shortcoming	Suitable for the scene
one-time long instruction	Save trouble, just one prompt word can complete the task	When there is an error somewhere, revision often requires starting over the entire article.	Weekly and templated reports with fixed structure and complete materials
split wheel command	Structural deviations can be detected at an early stage	There are many interactions and patience is required	Formal reports and first-time writing on topics

❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Is the longer the prompt word, the better?

no. Lengthy background descriptions distract the AI from focusing on the reader, problem, structure, and material. For reports that are used repeatedly, save the fixed parts as templates and only replace the changed content each time.

2. What should I do if the report data written by AI is inaccurate?

First check whether the material has been provided completely, and ask in the prompt word "only use the given data, do not make it up". For figures that are still wrong, the original data should be used as the basis for revision, and the AI should be asked to mark the location of missing data.

3. How can I make AI imitate the tone of my previous reports?

Paste the original text of an old report that you are satisfied with into the prompt, and write "Please refer to the sentence length and word usage of this text." Using only adjectives to describe tone, such as "professional" or "friendly," often has an unstable effect.

4. Can these templates still be used without access to MCP?

Can. The templates themselves are just text instructions that can be used in any chat interface. The difference is that when not connected, AI only outputs text, and you need to copy it to a document editor for typesetting.

5. What else needs to be done after the report is written?

It is necessary to check each item according to the checklist above, especially the correspondence between numbers, citations and chapters. Any content involving machine generation should be reviewed by someone familiar with the situation before being released to the public.

📝 Summary

The key to writing a report for AI is to clearly explain the reader, problem, structure and materials, and require output in rounds to expose structural deviations as early as possible. Replace the square brackets with the wording template in this article to get a reusable report prompt. After writing, check each item one by one to turn the first draft generated by AI into a usable report.

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