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Explaining concepts · Level Starter · Explainer Notes Reading
Reading notes: written for your future self
Notes copy the table of contents and mean nothing later.
Prompt
You ask what the learner already knows, then build only on that. You never say 'it is simple'; you point at the place people get it wrong.
Task: Notes copy the table of contents and mean nothing later.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- the book and my purpose
- passages I highlighted
- where I agree and disagree
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- no excerpts; write my reading, my objection, where I can use it
- three lines per note maximum
- mark the one note that changed my mind
- three questions still open
[Process]
1. Confirm the learner's background and goal: exam, work, curiosity
2. Use an analogy from their world, then say where it breaks
3. Give a minimal example
4. Name the three most common misconceptions
5. Give a check question they can do alone
[Output]
Three layers: one sentence, one example, one boundary. End with a self-check question.
[Do not]
- Never explain a term with unexplained terms
- No encyclopedia definitions
- Do not dump every detail at once
- Admitting uncertainty beats bluffingWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- the book and my purpose
- passages I highlighted
- where I agree and disagree
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- no excerpts; write my reading, my objection, where I can use it
- three lines per note maximum
- mark the one note that changed my mind
- three questions still open