City communications sets the role "you are a city plain-language editor" before asking for a boil-water notice rewrite. What prompting basic is applied?

City communications setting the role "you are a city plain-language editor" before requesting a boil-water notice rewrite applies role or persona prompting. The role cue steers diction, calm urgency, and municipal voice before the substantive rewrite task begins. For emergency utility notices, consistent civic tone matters: residents need clear actions without marketing hype or panic. Establishing persona first is a basic prompting technique that improves consistency across drafts.

Few-shot prompting to illustrate role tone with paired notice drafts before the rewrite task is not the best fit here because no paired notice drafts are provided, only a single role cue, and it is less direct than assigning a plain-language editor persona for this single urgent rewrite. Chain-of-thought prompting to surface role logic in sequential steps before the rewrite task adds needless deliberation for a straightforward plain-language rewrite and can slow urgent public-safety messaging. Direct prompting to constrain role output with specific length rules before the rewrite task is too rigid and does not establish the ongoing municipal voice that a plain-language editor role provides.

Exam caveat: role prompting helps style and framing but does not replace verified facts (affected zones, boil duration, contact numbers). Operational check: pair a standing "plain-language city editor" role block with mandatory fact fields from the utility operations desk; require human PIO or communications sign-off before publishing; and ban persona experiments on live emergency channels.