How ChatGPT Can Write a Long Article (decent first draft) in 10 Minutes

Video Transcript

How ChatGPT Can Write a Long Article (decent first draft) in 10 Minutes

I think you will be amazed at the quality you can get from ChatGPT in writing an article – a long article – if you do it right. And that’s what I am covering here today. Why would you want this? Well, as a business owner, you are trying to prepare articles for publications for your website, perhaps social media.

Maybe you are preparing a speech; whatever the purpose is where you are creating a long article. If you just type into ChatGPT, “Hey, write me an article on X with whatever topic you want,” it’s not great. So, a lot of people have concluded that ChatGPT just can’t do the job, but you, in fact, just need to give it the right prompts.

So I’ve spent a lot of time – because it’s a hobby of mine – to understand AI and prompt engineering, and I thought I’d share a quick and easy way to generate high-quality articles using ChatGPT. This is a series of prompts, and I’ll kind of walk you through it. There are also some optional sections here, but I can do this in about 10 minutes. In fact, it might even be closer to seven minutes, but this video will be a little longer because I am going to explain how to do some things and what some options are.

I am Aaron Hall. I am an attorney for business owners and entrepreneurial companies, and I create educational videos like this to help business owners establish successful companies and enjoy the rewards of providing great value to customers and a great place for employees. It all starts with having a good company. And in this case, it is just a little technique of using ChatGPT to write great articles. So, here we go.

Choosing the Right Version of ChatGPT

First, you need to log on to ChatGPT. So I am going to do this right here. Now, if you have GPT-4 – which is the more advanced version of ChatGPT – you want to use that. It costs $20 a month right now for a subscription, which I pay, but it provides slightly higher quality, a little more detail, and a more refined understanding of the subject matter.

And it kind of makes sense because it is trained on a lot more data. So, I think of ChatGPT 3.5 as asking a college freshman something and asking GPT-4 is like asking a college senior something. They have been exposed to more knowledge and concepts, and they can speak at a slightly deeper level about whatever topic you have asked them about. They still don’t have real-world experience, probably. They are not the world’s experts in something, but there is a deeper exposure with GPT-4. So think of it like that. There is just more data used to train GPT-4, just like a college senior has been exposed to more data. So if you have it, use GPT-4. It’s $20 a month. And if you are using it a lot like I do, it’s a very inexpensive tool but you could do it in GPT-3.5 if needed.

Initial Brainstorming and Outlining

Let’s begin entering the prompts. So first, we want to start brainstorming this topic. More importantly, we want ChatGPT to become familiar with the topic we are working with. Why? Because that puts it in ChatGPT’s short-term memory. ChatGPT has access to the knowledge it has acquired, which helps it predict the next likely word. But we want to get into its short-term memory – the universe of general concepts we are writing about. That is easy. Just input this prompt: “What are terms and concepts related to,” and then enter your topic. Let’s work on a topic that is totally unrelated to me. I am a business attorney in Minnesota, but let’s do “domestic assault charges in Colorado.” I don’t know criminal law, and I certainly don’t know Colorado law, so let’s get that running. Here, ChatGPT is putting together a list.

Enhancing the Outline

Additional Topics

Now, I am going to start working on my next prompt. In this case, I want to outline a comprehensive blog article by a Colorado criminal defense attorney on the topic of – and here we will paste in the topic we are working with: “domestic assault charges in Colorado.” We won’t do an introduction section because that is repetitive; it is a preview of everything to come. I find that isn’t helpful. I can add that at the end if needed. Likewise, a conclusion section is just a repetition of what’s already been there, and I want to use heading levels.

For example, the title is heading one. Level two is going to be the headings in the article. Level three is for subheadings, and level four is for what you might call sub-subheadings. We want to output it in code that makes it easy to paste later. It just puts it into a nice little box, which you will see.

Key Talking Points

Markdown is a format that computers and humans can read well. So, a level two heading would have two number signs (##) before it. You will see what that means here. With this initial brainstorm in its short-term memory, now we can move over to prompt number two: preparing the outline. It will use that short-term memory to prepare the outline. There are options to enhance that by adding additional topics. As it is preparing the outline, you can see the first heading. Then there’s a subheading, which is preceded by three number signs. The second heading is “Legal Procedures and Consequences.”

Optional: Lengthening the Article

First Section: Knowing the Basics

By the way, ChatGPT does well with general concepts that are often written about on the internet. It struggles with legal technical issues, especially those that aren’t frequently written about on the internet. It also struggles with scientific knowledge that might be in scientific journals behind paywalls or not accessible for free to the general public. You have to register or log in to see those. ChatGPT wasn’t trained on that. So, we’ll get the best results with general topics. We are not talking today about how to incorporate technical information. If you wanted to do that, it’s fairly simple. I will just give you a little teaser. The way to do it is to paste that information from an article here. So ChatGPT has it in its short-term memory. Then you can ask ChatGPT to write about that or integrate that into the article you are writing with the outline structure you have. Pasting it here is one way to do it. Another way is with plugins, but we won’t get into that today.

We are going to try to get a really good first draft of an article on all of these topics. Now, you may be looking at this – and by the way, see how I can just copy the code? That is the benefit of having ChatGPT write this in code. I said, “Output the outline in code,” and now we get this black box. It makes it really easy to copy text from there. Markdown is… Like these little number signs here, and there will be some other indications as we go on. Alright, so we have a decent outline here, I assume. Alright, let’s take a look at the first option here. If you want to ask, let’s ChatGPT to just enhance this whole thing.

Second Section: Expanding the Article

We’ll add this prompt down here. So let’s get this started. So it can be running. I’ll explain what the prompt is doing. It says, “Make sure the outline above is comprehensive. Add any missing items.” I’ll put the entire outline again with newly added items. So we’ll see here. I am actually not seeing any bold or underline so far and, by the way, this particular request to lengthen the entire article doesn’t necessarily work great. What works better is the next step, which is where ChatGPT is asked to do it on a section-by-section basis. But I am actually seeing it here. Here’s a new entry. The asterisks here indicate bold and then you can see underline on both sides. So that’s just in markdown how this is designated. So we are getting a few additional sections here, and that’s nice to see. Alright, so let’s just say, “Provide the same outline, but remove the bold and underline. Keep those sections.” Let’s make sure that worked properly. So what I want to make sure is under mandatory arrest, we have “Rights of the Accused During Arrest.” I can just copy that to the clipboard and see if it comes up. Oh yeah, there it is. “Rights of the Accused During Arrest.” Great. So this is just giving us a nice outline which we’re going to come back to a number of times here.

Third Section: Enhancing Each Section

So for example, you would say for section blank. So, one of the outlines, let’s just give this a try. By the way, you can just use this as needed. So you might look through this and go, “Okay, what do I want to enhance here?” How about under practical tips? There we go. So we could just say, instead of “section number,” say “for the section of the outline above, add additional topics that should be included.” You know, and I am going to get rid of this “bold and underline all of your additions” because I don’t care to see that right now.

Note: Alright, so it’s providing the same outline again, but it’s going to enhance the practical tips for those facing charges. You can do this for every single section if you wanted, and it would make your outline expand. But it starts getting into details that may not be relevant because the first time ChatGPT went through, it got the big concepts. What you are doing here is saying, “I want more concepts. I want more concepts.” So it starts getting less and less relevant as it reaches for more concepts to integrate. So use your discretion on how much you want to use that. That’s for each section that you want to enhance.

Fourth Section: Add Talking Points to Each Section Item 

This next outline is very similar, but what we’re going to do is we are going to first insert the current outline here because ChatGPT starts to forget stuff that’s way up on top. So we are going to insert the current outline again. To do that, I just copy from there and paste it. I can shift-enter to go down without actually hitting the enter button here. Then we are going to say, “In the outline above, add key talking points below each section or below each heading.” Avoid an introduction section and conclusion because, again, we don’t want to have these conclusory paragraphs. I will put the entire outline again with newly added items. I am not actually going to ask it to bold and underline because then we have to go through and remove those afterward. We will just assume it does it, and then output code and markdown.

So, as you can see, we have headings here right now, and little dashes, but we are telling it one more way to enhance this before we go write the article. Again, this is not necessary, but as you can see, we are getting, we are going to get a long structure of what we want ChatGPT to use to write this article. All of these are optional sections. I find most topics don’t actually need all of these optional sections to lengthen the article. But if you really want to get detailed and have a lengthy article, this is the way to do it.

Writing the Article

This final step now is to write the article. And we want to insert the current article outline here. So this now is the current outline. It is still writing it, so we will come back to that. We will insert that in a moment. And here’s what the next prompt we’re going to use. Using the first section of the outline above, write the first section of a blog article written by a, and then insert the expert’s name here. And so in this, I think we are going to say Colorado criminal defense attorney. You, and then we will tell ChatGPT, “Hey, you are a Colorado criminal defense attorney. Your expertise is, let’s say defending people charged with, and what’s the topic we’re writing about here? Domestic assault charges in Colorado.” So drop that in there. The intended audience of the article is people charged with domestic assault in Colorado. We are going to start out here with the first section. And we will change that over here. So we’re saying, “Using the first section of the outline above, right the first section of a blog article written by a Colorado criminal defense attorney.” And then I, and then we proceed here. Alright, let’s start. Oh, it says here, “Continue generating.” So it looks like it stopped because it ran out of space. Alright, so we’re going to tell it, “Hey, keep going. We want the whole thing.” That can come up from time to time when you have used these optional sections here to lengthen the outline. The outline can get pretty long and ChatGPT can struggle with how long it is. Let’s just make sure. So it is ending with “Financial Questions or Considerations.” Let’s make sure that that is where it should end.

So the last time we worked on the outline, the last version of the outline was “Financial Considerations” and there were three sub-points. But then when we gave it the prompt of “Add Key Talking Points,” I am guessing it’s coming up with more than three sub-points under “Financial Considerations.” Alright, so under “Financial Considerations,” we have each of the three sub-points and then we have a talking point under that. So in this example, “Fee Structures and Transparency” is the talking point.

Alright, so now it is time to write the fourth section. All right. So under financial considerations, we have each of the three sub-points and then we have a talking point under that. So in this example, fee structures and transparency is the talking point. All right, so now it is time to get to writing. And ChatGPT has an output limit for each prompt so if you really want a long article, you could chunk this into just little pieces at a time.

So you could say, for the section titled blank, write a blog article or write a section of a blog article. I think this is going to be a really long article. So I am just going to focus on these subheadings here. So for this first section, um, or you could say for the section titled understanding domestic assault charges in Colorado, or you could say for the first heading or subheading, or I guess this is called heading level two, but, but ChatGPT is smart enough. It will be able to handle this. So let’s copy the entire outline that it’s produced so far, and I hit enter.

So here is what it looks like first, we have the whole outline coming in (I just pasted that from above). And then at the very end, we have our prompt using the first section of the outline above. Okay, ChatGPT is now writing a blog article for this section, right here. And by the way, we can note that it should end at [Parents of the same child]. So let’s see how it is doing here. Alright, it’s writing. And while that is writing, we can get our next prompt ready. And this time I’m going to change it to using the second section. Great. So now we are giving the same prompt again, or the same outline. But the only difference with this prompt compared to the last one is we are saying, using the second section of the outline above, right the second section of a blog article.

All right. So here, ChatGPT now gets to work on the second one. And while that second section is being written, I can paste this in and get ready for it to work on the third one. ChatGPT is a little bit slow, especially when it comes to GPT 4. So we just need to let it finish writing and keep an eye on this little stop-generating thing. We don’t want it to stop, but if that turns into a continuation, then we tell ChatGPT, “Hey, keep going, finish the task.” And, what happens there? Sometimes it just stops because it runs into a word limit essentially for a single response, and it wants approval to keep going.

So, the big picture here, you can see that ChatGPT is writing up section by section, and when you do it this way rather than all at once, ChatGPT produces a more comprehensive and longer article. If you ask it to do it all at once, it doesn’t go to the same level of detail and carefulness that it would if you give it direction for each section.

Okay, so it’s come to an end. It ended with the impact of previous convictions and let’s just go up into our little outline here. So we have heading number one is understanding domestic assault. Heading number two is legal procedures and consequences. So it should end with the impact of previous convictions.

So we are going to go look for the most recent heading. So previous convictions and their impact was the last subheading we asked it to write about. The next heading or section it is going to write about is additional considerations. And then, by the way, we will have practical tips. And that will be the end. So, let’s put this in here. We’re now going, so there are a total of four sections here. We’re now prompting ChatGPT to write about the third section. And so we are just following this final step here, especially repeating this for each section. So we are now on the third section.

So to recap where we are, we keep putting into ChatGPT short-term memory, the entire current outline. So that was the final version of the outline that had talking points in it. And then, we are entering this prompt, and we just keep changing this little section here for whichever one we are on. So right now, it is writing about the third section. We are going to get it ready to write the fourth section. And you might say, “Hey, how is it that I just have that in the clipboard every time?” Well, it is the exact same prompt I used last time, but I am switching it from third to fourth. We will let ChatGPT finish up writing.

Writing the Final Section

Let’s get ready now because now that it’s mostly done, we will be able to put this into a new blog post. I will show you what that looks like here. Okay. So ChatGPT finished section three. Now we are going to do the final section. We will get it working on that (the fourth section). Okay, so let’s start moving stuff over.

Okay. And now we need to bring up a text editor to start pasting all of this stuff in here. So I have got a little text editor right here and we are going to start pasting from the first section it wrote. So here, as I said, using the second section, let’s go to the one above that. Here is what I said using the first section of the outline above, write the first section of a blog article. All right, so copy that. I just click that little box there and paste it into the text box. Now we go down, get ready to do the next one. Scroll down here to the next code box. Here it is. Copy code, paste. Go to the end. Now I am going to the prompt where I asked about the third section, which is right here. Say copy code, paste. And now let’s see if it is done with the fourth and final section. Yes, it is. Great. Copy code, paste. All right. So now we have this huge article here, by the way, how many words is this 2,571 words minus, I think some of these heading symbols here? So maybe not, but that is a lengthy article.

So what do we do with this? We go into WordPress and you need to be in the block editor. So do whatever you need to do in order to have the block editor showing, and when the block editor is showing, then when you go to paste in here, all of this text in Markdown format, it will put it into the format you need. So here we go. You can see it is no longer in Markdown format. Understanding domestic assault charges in Colorado is now an H2 tag. The definition of domestic assault in Colorado is now an H3 tag.

So here we have an incredible first draft of a blog article. Ready to go. I recommend that you read through it. Make sure it is accurate.

Conclusion