Lesson 4 of 8 · Generative AI Foundations You Can Explain
In this lesson. Know what must be checked before a draft leaves your desk.
What you will learn
- What never belongs in a prompt
- Citing and labeling AI-assisted drafts
- A pre-publish safety checklist
Walkthrough
Generative tools can leak private text you pasted, copy a style too closely, or state guesses as facts. This lesson covers a short pre-publish checklist: secrets, citations, people mentioned, and whether a human still owns the final wording. You will also note when to label AI-assisted work for your team.
Work through the ideas in order. After each point, pause and connect it to a task you already do — a document, a workflow, or a feature you own. The goal of Generative AI Foundations You Can Explain is usable skill, not a pile of notes.
If something is unclear, rewrite it in your own words before you continue. Teaching the step back to yourself is the fastest way to see gaps.
Practice
Run the checklist on one draft you would actually send. List anything you had to change by hand.
Keep the first attempt small. A finished example you can reuse beats a perfect plan you never run.
Check your understanding
- Can you explain the goal of this lesson in one sentence to a teammate?
- Where would you apply “What never belongs in a prompt” in your own work this week?
- What would you change on a second pass of the practice?
Next. Continue to the following lesson when the practice has a real artifact, even a rough one.