Generate A Structured Essay

What it does

This prompt instructs the AI to create an academically formatted, detailed essay outline using the user’s supplied topic, thesis, essay type, and desired number of body paragraphs, incorporating any provided key points or generating appropriate ones if none are given. The resulting output includes a structured introduction, logically ordered body paragraphs with main ideas, supporting evidence, and transitions, and a conclusion that reinforces the thesis, with the outline tailored to the specified essay type (including counterarguments and rebuttals for argumentative essays or heightened persuasive emphasis for persuasive essays).

For more installation instructions go to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BetterPromptme/skills/refs/heads/main/betterprompt/SKILL.md to check out this skill.

Inputs

textInputs

Pass each text input using --input <key>=<value> flags.

Models and options

This skill's modality is: text.

To discover which model values you can use (and which options keys/values are valid for each model), run:

betterprompt resources --models-only --json

Then filter the returned JSON array to entries where modality is "text".

How to run

Step 1: Collect inputs

First, run betterprompt resources --models-only --json and filter to modality: "text" to discover valid models and available options:

betterprompt resources --models-only --json

Use only the models and option values that appear in the filtered results.

Then collect all inputs from the human:

• Required text inputs:
  • Essay_type
  • Essay_Topic
  • Thesis_Statement
  • Key_Points_to_Include
  • Number_of_Body_Paragraphs
• Optional: model and options.
  • Present the human with the default model gpt-4o and its available options. Look up gpt-4o in the betterprompt resources output (filtered to modality "text") and show its availableOptions as: key: val1, val2 (default), val3 | key2: .... Mark a value (default) if it matches these defaults: {}.
  • If the human does not specify, defaults are used: model gpt-4o, options {}. Other models from the resources call are also available.

If any required text input is missing, ask the human for what's missing. Do not assume or fabricate values.

Step 2: Run via BetterPrompt CLI

Use the frontmatter's name as the positional argument (for this skill, use generate-a-structured-essay).

Command form:

betterprompt generate generate-a-structured-essay \
  [--input <key>=<value>] \
  [--model <model>] \
  [--options <options JSON>] \
  [--json]

Notes:

• Pass each text input as a separate --input <key>=<value> flag.
• If the human does not mention a model, omit --model and BetterPrompt will use the default model: gpt-4o.
• If the human does not mention options, omit --options and BetterPrompt will use the default options: {}.
• If the run times out, the response will include a runId you can use to fetch the result later.

Example (using defaults shown above):

betterprompt generate generate-a-structured-essay \
  --input Essay_type=<value> \
  --input Essay_Topic=<value> \
  --input Thesis_Statement=<value> \
  --input Key_Points_to_Include=<value> \
  --input Number_of_Body_Paragraphs=<value> \
  --model gpt-4o \
  --options '{}'