docAnalyzer

Phrasing tips that improve answers

Small wording changes that compound into better, faster, more specific answers.

How you phrase a question shapes both what gets retrieved from your documents and what the model does with it. These are concrete patterns that consistently produce better answers.

Be specific about what you want back

Vague questions get vague answers. Tell the model the shape of the response you need.

Less helpful More helpful
"Tell me about this contract." "List the renewal terms, the termination clauses, and the governing law."
"Summarize." "Summarize in three bullets, each under twenty words."
"What's in here?" "List the section titles and the topic of each."

Use the vocabulary in the documents

Semantic search finds the right passages by meaning, but the words you use still help. If your documents say "termination for convenience," that phrase pulls in better passages than "how to cancel".

A useful sequence when you don't know the document's vocabulary:

  1. 1

    Ask broadly to get the lay of the land: "What sections does this document have?"

  2. 2

    Spot the phrasing the document uses.

  3. 3

    Ask the specific question using that phrasing.

Ask for the format you want

The chat will produce structured outputs (tables, lists, spreadsheets, even PDFs) if you ask for them.

  • "Put this in a table with columns: clause, section, page."
  • "Make this a markdown bulleted list, one per finding."
  • "Generate a one-page PDF report I can share with my team."

When the answer should be a file rather than prose, see What you can generate.

Ask one thing at a time on hard questions

When a question is dense (comparing across documents, doing arithmetic, reconciling conflicting clauses) split it up. Each turn is cheap; sharper turns produce sharper answers.

Less helpful:

"Compare the renewal terms across the 30 contracts, flag the ones longer than two years, find any that conflict with the master template, and write me a summary."

More helpful (across several turns):

  1. "List the renewal term length for each contract, in a table."
  2. "Of those, which exceed two years?"
  3. "For the ones longer than two years, do any conflict with the master template's renewal clause?"
  4. "Summarize the three findings."

You can save each step as a note if you want to keep it.

Demand citations when you need to trust the answer

Citations are on by default for Focus. But if an answer feels thin on grounding, ask:

  • "Where does the document say that?"
  • "Cite the page numbers for each claim."
  • "Quote the exact sentence you're basing this on."

If the chat can't ground the claim, a well-behaved answer will say so rather than fabricate.

Switch modes when phrasing isn't the issue

Sometimes the problem isn't how you asked; it's where you asked. If you're in Ask docAnalyzer and you want a deep, cited answer, open a Focus on the specific sources. If you're asking the same question of many documents, run a workflow instead.

What's next

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