Negative Prompting

Negative prompting explicitly tells the model what not to do, produce, or include, complementing the positive instructions that describe the desired output. Saying 'Do not include citations,' 'Avoid jargon,' or 'Do not speculate beyond the provided context' steers the model away from known failure modes. While less powerful on its own than precise positive instructions, negative prompting is a practical corrective when a model persistently exhibits an unwanted behavior despite general guidance.