Exercise 1: Ask well

12 minutes. Work with a partner on one laptop.

You work at the Harbor Street Food Pantry. Your boss needs one paragraph about last quarter for a grant report to the Fairview Family Fund. Here is the pantry's report. (The pantry and the fund are made up.)

Harbor Street Food Pantry: July to September 2026

• Households served: 1,284
• People in those households: 3,912, including 1,406 children
• Food given out: 61,450 pounds
• Volunteers: 47 people gave 1,930 hours
• New Saturday hours started on August 2. 212 households came on a Saturday.

Round 1: a short request (3 minutes)

Open Claude. Type only this:

Write a paragraph about our food pantry for a grant report.

Copy or print the answer.

Round 2: a better request (4 minutes)

Start a new chat. This time, tell Claude who it's for, how long it should be, and what facts to use. You can type this, or write your own:

I work at the Harbor Street Food Pantry. Write one paragraph, about 120 words, for a grant report to the Fairview Family Fund. The readers are the fund's board. Use only the numbers in the report below. Don't add any numbers, results or quotes that aren't in it.

(Paste the report from the box above.)

Compare (5 minutes)

1. In each answer, circle every number. Find each one in the report. Mark any number that isn't there.
2. If Claude left blanks like "[X] households", what would you fill them with? Where would you get the number?
3. Underline any claim the report doesn't support, like "we ended hunger in our area" or "a 30 percent rise".
4. Which answer would you send to the fund? What would you still change?

What to take away: the more Claude knows about who it's writing for and what facts to use, the less you have to fix. You still check every number before it goes out.