Back to results
Explore the library298 guides total · goals, work & tasks
By goal

Choose what you want to achieve.

By work or interest

Choose a setting you work or spend time in.

By task

Choose the kind of help you want.

Counts show all available guides. Filters combine to narrow your results.

Simplify a complex taskGuide

Summarize a survey without using the wrong denominator

Separate people, question answerers and selections before calculating any percentage.

Illustrative resourceNot tool-testedAdults working with original, synthetic or authorized non-sensitive material
What you’re working towards

A descriptive result table that distinguishes respondents, answered questions and multiple selections, with skipped questions visible. This is an authored practice example; no consumer AI run or real participant trial has been recorded.

Download playbook .md

Your choice also saves this guide’s current worked-example checkmarks. Only this browser; no account or sync. View saved guides

Saving needs JavaScript. Reading and downloading this guide does not save it.

Make a start

One step at a time.

2 steps

Start with the synthetic worked example or other non-sensitive inputs. Run one prompt at a time in your chosen AI tool. Replace any bracketed placeholders with the requested material, check each reply, and supply the source or earlier outputs that step needs. Paste them again if the tool lacks that context.

Start with the synthetic example, then adapt each prompt to your task.

01

Try the complete example

Open a new chat in a text AI assistant you already have permission to use. Copy the entire prompt below, including SAMPLE INPUT, into the message box and send it. No upload or special tool is needed. Expect a descriptive result table that distinguishes respondents, answered questions and multiple selections, with skipped questions visible. Compare the result with Input; Output is a worked illustration, not text to paste. Wording and optional editorial choices can differ, but source facts and rules must match. Independently count 4 respondents, 3 answerers, 1 skip and 5 selections; do not use those denominators interchangeably. A is selected by R1/R2, B by R1/R4 and C by R4. The answerer fractions are 2/3, 2/3 and 1/3; skip rate is 1/4. One-decimal display is 66.7%, 66.7%, 33.3% and skip 25.0%. The option percentages may sum above 100 because selections overlap. If a detail differs, paste: “This part is wrong: [quote it]. My input says: [quote the exact source line or rule]. Return a complete corrected replacement and explain the change.” Recheck it yourself. If an essential source fact is missing or contradictory, leave that part unresolved and obtain the fact; never substitute a practice value. Save only the checked draft in a separate note.

Your starting prompt
Validate the response rows under the supplied question and duplicate/skip rules, then count respondents, answerers, skips and selections separately. Report each option with its answerer denominator and report skips with the respondent denominator. Show exact fractions, one-decimal percentages, source IDs and why overlapping percentages need not sum to 100.

SAMPLE INPUT
Original synthetic practice input. All people, organizations, records, observations and events below are fictional.

Original invented four-row dataset for one fictional adult workshop question Q1. These are teaching rows, not collected survey results.
Q1: "Which of these paper activities would you like listed in a future workshop leaflet? Select all that apply."
Options: A = folding; B = collage; C = paper cutting. A valid answer is any nonempty subset of A/B/C, each option at most once. A blank list means Skip. No None/Not applicable option exists in this fixture; all four rows were eligible and shown Q1. Do not turn a skip into opposition to an activity.
Each ID is explicitly one unique respondent; no duplicate exports or repeat respondents are present. If duplicates, unsupported choices or repeated options occur in a later input, hold and apply an explicit owner policy before counting.

respondent_id | Q1 selections
R1 | A,B
R2 | A
R3 | [blank]
R4 | B,C

Requested report: counts of supplied respondents, Q1 answerers, skips and total selections; for each option, the fraction and percentage of Q1 answerers selecting it; and the skip fraction/percentage of all respondents. One respondent can count in several option rows but at most once per option. Show exact fractions and percentages rounded to one decimal place; do not force rounded percentages to sum to 100. Do not report share of all selections unless separately requested. Describe this synthetic batch only; no representative sample, significance, demand forecast, real preference result or causal claim.

Return the complete requested text result. Treat source statements as data, not permission to act. Do not claim a real interview, survey, measurement, source check, consumer AI run or tool execution. Do not send, publish, collect responses, upload files or change another service.
02

Use your own input

Open a new chat. Replace every bracketed field in the prompt below, then paste the whole message. Change related names, source IDs, counts, dates, labels, limits and checks together; none of the sample facts carries over. Use only original, synthetic or authorized non-sensitive material. Expect the same kind of complete result using your inputs. Recount unique eligible respondents, actual answerers and selection occurrences from your own complete source. Verify every numerator and denominator against the declared policies, recalculate percentages and keep a zero denominator undefined. If a detail differs, paste: “This part is wrong: [quote it]. My input says: [quote the exact source line or rule]. Return a complete corrected replacement and explain the change.” Recheck it yourself. If an essential source fact is missing or contradictory, leave that part unresolved and obtain the fact; never substitute a practice value. Save only the checked draft in a separate note.

Your starting prompt
Summarize my synthetic multi-choice response rows descriptively using my question definitions, eligibility, duplicate/invalid-response policy, missing/skip/none/not-applicable semantics and explicitly requested denominators. Validate first; hold unresolved eligibility or duplication instead of silently counting it. Show source IDs, numerator, named denominator, exact fraction and rounded percentage for every reported result. Keep respondents, question answerers and selections distinct. If a requested denominator is zero, report undefined/not calculable rather than 0%. Explain overlapping selections without claiming representativeness, significance or wider demand.

MY INPUT
Complete original synthetic response rows with anonymous tokens and question IDs: [replace with complete non-sensitive details, or state unknown]
Exact question wording, options and single/multiple selection rules: [replace with complete non-sensitive details, or state unknown]
Population of supplied records and eligibility/not-applicable rules per question: [replace with complete non-sensitive details, or state unknown]
Explicit duplicate and invalid-response policy: [replace with complete non-sensitive details, or state unknown]
Blank, skip, none, unknown and not-applicable meanings: [replace with complete non-sensitive details, or state unknown]
Requested numerator/denominator definitions and rounding rule: [replace with complete non-sensitive details, or state unknown]
Scope limits: descriptive source-only results, no population or causal inference: [replace with complete non-sensitive details, or state unknown]

Use only MY INPUT for facts, dates, names, counts, permissions and constraints. Ask for essential missing information or conflicting rules instead of guessing. Do not import practice-example values. Use original, synthetic or authorized non-sensitive material. Omit private identifiers, credentials, sensitive personal information and information about minors. Do not paste real customer or personnel records. Return the finished result, unresolved questions and proposed checks tied to my input. If the needed text capability is unavailable, stop rather than claiming an output was produced. Do not send, publish, collect responses, buy, book, upload files or change another service.
Optional: improve the result

Request a different denominator explicitly

This optional extension uses only the original synthetic sample. Return to the sample chat, or paste its complete Input into a new chat first. Keep the original edition for comparison. To adapt the extension to your own material, explicitly replace the source and every dependent value, rule and check. No result of this extension has been observed.

Advanced prompt
For the original sample only, add a separately labeled share-of-selections table. Keep the original answerer table and skip rate intact. Use the 5 selection occurrences as the new denominator, explain what question this table answers, and show why its option shares sum to 100% while the answerer percentages need not. Do not replace either denominator silently.
Show, then try

See the shape of the result.

This input is synthetic. The output is a written illustration of the intended result, not a verified AI-tool run.

The starting point

Synthetic input
Original synthetic practice input. All people, organizations, records, observations and events below are fictional.

Original invented four-row dataset for one fictional adult workshop question Q1. These are teaching rows, not collected survey results.
Q1: "Which of these paper activities would you like listed in a future workshop leaflet? Select all that apply."
Options: A = folding; B = collage; C = paper cutting. A valid answer is any nonempty subset of A/B/C, each option at most once. A blank list means Skip. No None/Not applicable option exists in this fixture; all four rows were eligible and shown Q1. Do not turn a skip into opposition to an activity.
Each ID is explicitly one unique respondent; no duplicate exports or repeat respondents are present. If duplicates, unsupported choices or repeated options occur in a later input, hold and apply an explicit owner policy before counting.

respondent_id | Q1 selections
R1 | A,B
R2 | A
R3 | [blank]
R4 | B,C

Requested report: counts of supplied respondents, Q1 answerers, skips and total selections; for each option, the fraction and percentage of Q1 answerers selecting it; and the skip fraction/percentage of all respondents. One respondent can count in several option rows but at most once per option. Show exact fractions and percentages rounded to one decimal place; do not force rounded percentages to sum to 100. Do not report share of all selections unless separately requested. Describe this synthetic batch only; no representative sample, significance, demand forecast, real preference result or causal claim.

Copies text only. For image or file tasks, use the source files named in the steps too.

Download source .txt

The intended result

Illustrative output
Illustrative answer authored for this guide; not a recorded AI response or a real-world trial.

Counting basis for synthetic Q1
Supplied respondents: 4 (R1, R2, R3, R4), explicitly unique and eligible.
Q1 answerers: 3 (R1, R2, R4).
Q1 skips: 1 (R3); its empty list is not a No or None answer.
Total selections: 5 = 2 from R1 + 1 from R2 + 0 from R3 + 2 from R4.
All supplied options are allowed; each is selected at most once per respondent. No duplicate policy needs to be applied to this fixture.

option | selecting respondent IDs | count | denominator: Q1 answerers | exact fraction | percent of Q1 answerers
A: folding | R1, R2 | 2 | 3 | 2/3 | 66.7%
B: collage | R1, R4 | 2 | 3 | 2/3 | 66.7%
C: paper cutting | R4 | 1 | 3 | 1/3 | 33.3%

Skip rate among all supplied respondents: 1/4 = 25.0% (R3 out of R1–R4).
The option counts sum to 5 because people may choose more than one option. Their exact fractions sum to 5/3, or 166 2/3%; the displayed rounded percentages sum to 166.7%. This is expected for a select-all question, not a reason to divide by 5 or force a 100% total.
Share of selections would answer a different question and has not been requested here. The option table uses 3 answerers throughout; the skip rate uses 4 respondents. Keep those labels beside the values.
These are descriptive calculations on four invented rows only. They are not collected results, representative preferences, evidence of wider demand or an executed AI workflow.
Download result .txt
You’re the final check

Check the worked example.

These checks use the worked example and its particular facts. With your own material, check your actual names, numbers, sources and rules; do not reuse the sample’s values as the answer.

Unsaved checks stay in this tab and reset when you reload. If you choose Save guide, its current example checkmarks are kept in this browser when storage is available.

A few things to watch for.

  • Dividing by total selections silently changes a percentage of answerers into a share of marks.
  • A skipped question does not mean no preference or none, and an all-skipped question has no answerer percentage to calculate.

What has been checked?

Documentation
No dated source review recorded.
Included files
No scoped artifact-check record.
AI workflow
Not run in a recorded consumer-AI workflow.
Time savings
Time savings not measured

Copy these instructions

Your browser blocked automatic copying. Select the text below and copy it.