# Long Prompts: Order and Placement — Prompt Engineering

Source: https://www.geekswithgeeks.com/en/prompt-engineering/x-order

> Place documents and questions so the model uses them well.

## The middle gets lost

Models often use information at the **start and end** of a long prompt more reliably than details in the **middle**. Practical layout for long inputs: put the **documents first**, then the **question and instructions last** (and repeat the key rule briefly if the prompt is very long); label each document with an ID and title; put the most relevant material at the edges; and trim irrelevant text rather than sending everything. Test with a needle-in-a-haystack style check on your own data: hide a known fact at different positions and see when the model misses it.

## Test with a planted fact

Hide a known sentence at the start, middle and end of a long input and check that the model finds it each time.

**Quiz:** Where is it usually best to place the question in a long prompt?

- [x] After the documents, near the end
- [ ] Hidden in the middle of the documents
- [ ] Never
- [ ] Before the system prompt

*Answer:* After the documents, near the end. Ending with the question and key rules makes them salient.