Indictment: 'Detailed but short, thorough but brief, professional but casual' — you've written four constraints that cancel each other out and called it a brief.
see the specimen they pasted
Write a detailed but short summary of this report. Be thorough but keep it brief, professional but casual, and don't make it too long but cover everything.
“detailed but short”
Detail and shortness are a zero-sum game — every detail you add is length you said you didn't want. You haven't given the model a target, you've given it a paradox to silently resolve however it feels like.
swap: 'detailed but short' → 'max 150 words, covering only the key findings, decision points, and recommended actions'
Replace tension-pairs like 'detailed but short' with a concrete word count and a named list of what actually must be included.
“professional but casual”
That's a tone slider with no position — the model will land somewhere in the middle and call it done. 'Professional but casual' is how every LinkedIn ghostwriter describes their vibe before producing mush.
swap: 'professional but casual' → 'plain business English: no jargon, no bullet-point padding, no sign-off pleasantries'
Tone direction lands when you name what's banned, not just the mood you're after — 'no jargon' beats 'casual' every time.
“don't make it too long but cover everything”
'Too long' and 'cover everything' are pulling in opposite directions, and 'everything' is the single most expensive word you can hand a language model — it will interpret that as a license to include the table of contents.
cut: 'cover everything' → name the 2–3 specific sections or data types that must appear (e.g. 'key findings, risks, and next steps only')
Never use 'everything' as a scope instruction — list the specific categories that must appear and let the model ignore the rest.
“Write a detailed but short summary of this report.”
There's no report here. The model is being asked to summarize a ghost — you haven't pasted the source, added a slot for it, or told the model anything about what it's reading.
add: a clearly-marked slot — '[REPORT TEXT: paste full report here]' — at the end of the prompt
Any summarization prompt without the source attached is just instructions for a task the model can't start — always include the content or a named slot for it.
Summarize the report below in 150 words or fewer. Include only these three things: 1. Key findings (what the report concludes) 2. Risks or caveats flagged 3. Recommended next steps Tone: plain business English. No jargon, no bullet padding, no filler phrases like 'it is worth noting' or 'in conclusion.' Write in short declarative sentences. If a section of the report has no finding, risk, or action worth naming, skip it entirely. Do not add context the report does not contain. If something is ambiguous in the source, flag it in one sentence rather than guessing. [REPORT TEXT: paste full report here]
/roast/example/contradiction