Part 2: Core Features in practice
2.1 Communicating effectively: the art of prompting
The most important skill for making the best use of UvA AI Chat is writing effective prompts. The quality of the output you receive from the AI is directly tied to the quality of the instructions you provide.
Definition of a prompt
A prompt is an instruction or question you give to the AI to generate a specific response or output. It's the foundation of your interaction with the AI. The clarity and level of detail in your prompt have a direct impact on the quality of the answer. A well-crafted prompt acts as a clear assignment, while a vague prompt typically results in a generic or unusable response.
While crafting a strong prompt is important, there's no need to worry if your first attempt doesn't work perfectly. The real strength of the AI lies in its ability to carry on a conversation, so if the output isn't what you expected, you can always ask the AI to adjust its answer. It's also helpful to ask the AI to help you improve your prompt.
Structure of an effective prompt
Prompting effectively means making your prompts clear, specific, and relevant. To do this, state clearly what you want the AI to do, including any nuances or specific requirements. Use concrete language, avoid vagueness, and provide context where needed to help the AI understand your question and generate accurate answers. A well-structured prompt usually contains three main elements:
- Context (introduction): Start with a brief introduction or background so the AI understands what the prompt is about. Who are you? What's the purpose of the task? Who is the output intended for?
- Question or instruction: Clearly state your question or give a specific, unambiguous task. Use complete sentences and be explicit about the action you want the AI to take.
- Specific details or criteria: Add relevant details, constraints, or criteria the AI should consider in its response. This could include the desired format (table, bullet points, continuous text), tone (formal, informal, creative), length (number of words), or specific points to address.
A key tip is to phrase instructions positively. Avoid exclusions (like "don't use difficult words"), because the AI tends to focus on any concept you mention. Instead, describe what you do want ("use simple, accessible language").
Practical example of positive formulation
- Negative: "Write an introduction for my essay, but don't use jargon and don't make it longer than 200 words."
- Positive: "Write an accessible introduction of around 200 words for my essay on Italo Calvino, aimed at a first-year student. Use clear, simple language and define the main concepts."
Table 1: Examples of positive formulation
The table below illustrates the difference between a vague prompt and a specific, well-structured prompt for various academic tasks.
| Task | Ineffective Prompt | Effective Prompt |
|---|---|---|
| Writing an email | "Write an email to my professor" | "Context: I need to email my professor, Dr. Jansen, about an extension for my paper on the Eighty Years' War. Instruction: Draft a formal and respectful email in which I request a two-day extension. Criteria: Mention that the reason is unforeseen personal circumstances (without going into detail) and suggest a new submission date." |
| Summarizing text | "Summarize this document" | "Context: The uploaded document is a scientific article about the impact of AI on the labor market. Instruction: Generate a summary in bullet points. Criteria: Focus on the research methodology, main findings, and the authors' conclusions. The summary should be in Dutch and no longer than 250 words." |
| Brainstorming | "Give me ideas for an argument" | "Context: I am a sociology researcher and want to write an essay within the theme of social inequality. Instruction: Generate five concrete standpoints I could write an essay about. Criteria: Each standpoint should be original, empirically grounded, and relevant to contemporary Dutch society." |
| Requesting feedback | "Check my text" | "Context: The attached file is the draft introduction of my research proposal. The audience is researchers in my field. Instruction: Provide constructive feedback on the text. Criteria: Analyze the text on three points: 1) clarity of the problem statement, 2) logical structure of the argument, and 3) academic writing style. Give concrete examples from the text and suggest specific improvements." |
2.2 "My prompts": Your personal collection of instructions
The "My prompts" is a feature that helps you work more efficiently by reusing effective prompts. You'll find the "My prompts" section via the book icon in the left sidebar of UvA AI Chat.
Using standard prompts
"My prompts" includes a collection of predefined prompts for common tasks. Examples include "feedback on your writing" and the "multiple choice question generation." These standard prompts are designed by experts and already have a strong structure. You can select a standard prompt and easily adapt it to your specific needs, allowing you to get fast, effective results.
Saving and reusing your own prompts
If you notice you're repeating certain tasks or instructions, you can save your own prompts in "My prompts". This is especially useful for complex, recurring assignments.
Practical example: Saving a custom prompt
Suppose you frequently write academic texts in English and want them checked for formal writing style. You can draft a highly effective prompt for this and save it for future use.
- Write your effective prompt.
- Go to "My prompts" and select "Add prompt".
- Give your prompt a clear name, like "Academic English Check".
- Paste your prompt in the text field: "Analyze the attached English text. Act as an experienced editor for an academic journal. Identify and correct sentences that are too informal for scientific publication. Replace colloquial language with formal alternatives, check for consistency in terminology, and suggest ways to vary sentence structure for better readability."
- Save the prompt. It's now available for easy reuse in future conversations.
Want to quickly reuse a previously saved prompt? Just click the book icon at the bottom of the text box in UvA AI Chat to see a list of your recent prompts and insert the one you need instantly.
Letting the AI search the internet
UvA AI Chat has a 'knowledge cutoff'; its knowledge is not up-to-date. To have the AI work with recent, online information, you can enable the internet search function. To do this, click on the 'swiss army knife' icon in the top right of a chat window and check 'Internet Search'. After you have activated the function, it is important that you state in your prompt that the AI should use the internet. For example, start your question with: "Search the internet for...". Please keep in mind that this functionality is still in development and does not always work flawlessly.
2.3 Uploading and analyzing documents
One of the most powerful features of UvA AI Chat is the ability to upload your own documents and use them as a contextual basis for your queries. This allows the AI to work with the specific information you provide, rather than just its general knowledge base. This makes the chatbot more powerful and reliable as it can give more accurate and well-supported answers based on your chosen sources.
Uploading documents
With UvA AI Chat, uploading documents is simple. Go to the text entry field at the bottom of the screen and click the paperclip icon. Then select the files you want to add from your computer. Once uploaded, the documents are immediately available for further use within the current conversation.
Supported file formats
UvA AI Chat supports a range of common file formats, including PDF, DOCX (Word), XLS (Excel), PPT (PowerPoint), and CSV. This makes it possible to upload and work with different document types, ranging from research articles to datasets, directly in your interactions with the AI.
Note: Large, unusual, or password-protected files may not always process correctly. If a document is very large (e.g., 100+ pages), the AI is essentially searching for a needle in a haystack.
Processing options and workflow
Once uploaded, the AI won't do anything with the document until you give an instruction. The document acts as a knowledge source for the AI. You can have texts analyzed, summarized, translated, or have the AI retrieve specific information from the document. The key is combining document upload with a precise prompt.
Practical example of integration in your workflow
A researcher is working on a literature review and has a 50-page PDF report that's relevant to her research.
- Uploading: She clicks the paperclip and uploads the PDF report to the chat.
- Prompting: Next, she asks a specific question about the document's content. An effective prompt could be: "Analyze the recently uploaded report and identify all sections related to sustainable policy. Summarize the key recommendations in bullet points, and for each recommendation, cite the page number where it can be found."
With this approach, the researcher saves time and receives a focused, actionable analysis of the uploaded text, ready for use in her own work.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
The technology by which uploading and analyzing documents functions is called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). This works by augmenting the language model's generation with information retrieved from your uploaded documents. When you submit a prompt, the system first compares your query to your documents and then retrieves pieces of information from your documents that seem relevant for your prompt. It can take a maximum of 10 pieces of information. These snippets are then added to your prompt as context and processed by the language model (LLM) to generate a more accurate and well-supported answer. This is immensely powerful, as it allows the AI to base its answer on specific contextual information you choose. However, it also has limitations; for example, it is not designed to summarize very large texts (it can only take 10 snippets).
2.4 Generating and analysing images
In addition to text-based tasks, UvA AI Chat can also generate images based on your descriptions. This is useful for creating illustrations for presentations, visualizing concepts, or for creative projects. To generate an image, simply ask for one in the chat's text box. As with textual prompts, the more detailed and specific your description, the better the result will fit your expectations. As always, you can ask AI to help you refine your prompt. Note that the image generator in UvA AI Chat is not yet reliable for creating images containing text.
Practical example of a detailed image prompt
Instead of asking something like "make a picture of a flower," you'll get far better results with a detailed prompt.
- Too general: "Generate a tulip".
- Detailed: "Generate an image in the style of a 19th-century botanical illustration. The image should show a tulip with clear, fine lines highlighting the details of the petals, stem, and leaves. The background should resemble parchment with a light texture".
Analyzing images
Use the photo icon at the bottom right of the text box to add images. After uploading, the AI can describe and interpret the content. Always include a prompt explaining what you want the AI to analyze. Note: the AI cannot always accurately interpret text, charts, or tables contained within images. In addition to uploading images using the paperclip icon, you can now also paste images directly into the chat. Simply copy an image from your computer or a webpage and paste it into the text entry field of UvA AI Chat. The image will be uploaded and ready for analysis.
2.5 Artifacts
The "Artifacts" feature in UvA AI Chat is a powerful tool designed to support collaborative work with the AI. An artifact is a separate window (with text, code, or visualizations) that both you and the AI can edit. This allows for easy collaboration as you can ask the AI to edit the artifact, and you can select pieces of text in the artifact and tell the AI to specifically edit those. Additionally, you can edit the text manually. This makes the AI more into a creative partner rather than just a text generator.
How to use artifacts
- Activate the feature: To begin, you must select the "Artifact Creation" feature within the UvA AI Chat interface (click the slider menu). This signals to the AI that you are looking for a output in a separate window for further editing.
- Provide a clear instruction: In the chat box, enter an instruction that clearly defines the topic and the type of artifact you need. For example, you could prompt the AI with: "create an artifact comparing Keynesian and Neoclassical economic theories."
- Review the generated output: The AI will then produce an artifact based on your request. In the example of economic theories, the output could be an overview of the key principles, assumptions and political implications.
- Collaborate on revisions: The platform allows you to refine the artifact collaboratively. You can make direct edits in the dedicated text or code window, or you can give the AI further instructions in the chat to modify or expand a specific section of the artifact. You can also select pieces of text or code and ask AI to modify those.
- Save your work: Make sure that if you manually edit the artifact, you first save the artifact before you ask the AI to continue editing it, you can do this by clicking on the "save" icon on the top right of the artifact. When you ask the AI to edit the artifact a new version will automatically be saved. Previous versions will also be saved, so you can track changes and revisit previous iterations if necessary by clicking on the arrows at the top left of the artifact. The completed artifact can then be downloaded for use in your research paper, presentation, or other academic projects. Do this by clicking on the arrow at the top right corner of the artefact, and selecting "download as".
2.6 Study Mode
"Study Mode" in UvA AI Chat turns the assistant into a guiding tutor. Instead of giving answers right away, the AI first asks questions, offers hints, and waits for your response before continuing. It helps prevent you from outsourcing too much of your thinking to AI. By actively practicing reasoning and formulating your own answers, you keep training and developing your critical thinking skills. The goal is that you reason yourself and thus reach better understanding.
How to use Study Mode
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Activate and set a learning goal: Open the slide menu in the textbox of UvA AI Chat and switch on Study Mode. To turn it off, click the cross next to Study. Then set a learning goal by specifying what you want to learn about and mention what you already know. Examples:
- "I am preparing a seminar on the French revolution and specifically the storming of the Bastille, help me understand the causes and interpretations of the cause."
- "I am preparing for an exam in research skills and want to understand how to compare two groups using statistics. Explain which methods are suitable, such as the t-test, and when it is better to use another test."
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Work in dialogue: The AI asks open questions and waits for your answer. You can indicate how you want to be guided: ask for smaller steps, hints instead of answers, or feedback on your reasoning. You can also request specific forms, such as a multiple-choice question, concrete examples, or metaphors.
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Adjust pace and level: Redirect where needed: "use simpler language", "make it harder", or "go faster/slower". The AI adjusts its questions, explanations, and examples accordingly.
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Conclude and record: To consolidate your learning, finish with a recap or practice material. Examples: "Summarise in five bullet points the most important lessons from this conversation" or "Give three practice questions with short solutions." If you want to save the result or work it out further, combine Study Mode with Artefacts. This allows you to edit notes, tables, or draft texts in a separate window and retrieve them later.
2.6 Creating Diagrams with Streamdown
UvA AI Chat includes a powerful feature called Streamdown, which allows you to create diagrams and flowcharts directly within the chat. This is particularly useful for visualizing complex processes, organizing ideas, or creating structured illustrations for your projects and presentations. Streamdown uses the popular Mermaid syntax, a simple and intuitive way to generate diagrams from text.
How to use Streamdown
To create a diagram, you simply need to provide a prompt that asks for a Mermaid code block. The AI will then render the diagram for you.
Practical example of creating a flowchart:
Suppose you want to create a flowchart that visualizes the research process. You can use the following prompt:
"Create a flowchart that illustrates the steps of the research process, from formulating a research question to publishing the results."
UvA AI Chat will then generate a Mermaid code block and the corresponding flowchart, which you can then download as an image.
Here is an example of what the Mermaid code might look like:
flowchart TD
A[Formulate Research Question] --> B[Conduct Literature Review]
B --> C[Design Research Methodology]
C --> D[Collect Data]
D --> E[Analyze Data]
E --> F[Interpret Results]
F --> G[Write Research Paper]
G --> H[Submit Paper for Peer Review]
H --> I[Revise Paper Based on Feedback]
I --> J[Publish Results]
This will produce a flowchart that clearly visualizes the different stages of the research process. You can create various types of diagrams, including sequence diagrams, Gantt charts, and pie charts, by using the corresponding Mermaid syntax in your prompts.