TL;DR: One Reddit prompt turns a jargon-heavy whitepaper into a one-page explainer that stays simple without becoming a lie by omission.
Whitepapers have a specific way of ruining a Tuesday. You paste one into a chatbot, ask for “explain simply,” and get back either baby talk or the same jargon wearing a different coat. A Redditor going by u/Live_Young831 hit this wall enough times to build a fix, and it’s a genuinely smart one.
The problem the original poster describes is common in any job where you sit between technical work and people who don’t have the background. You know the material. The room doesn’t. Most “simplify this” prompts either patronize the room or just reshuffle the jargon, and neither one actually explains anything.
What makes this one different is that it doesn’t just ask for “simple.” It builds in checks that catch the two ways simplifying usually goes wrong, talking down to the reader or quietly overstating what the document actually proves.
Why Most Simplifiers Fail
A basic “explain this simply” prompt has no guardrails. The model picks a comparison, runs with it, and never tells you where that comparison lies to you. Every analogy is a small lie that makes something clear at the cost of being exact.
It also never admits what got cut to fit the explanation, so you walk away either underselling the findings or overselling them in the meeting. Neither failure is obvious until someone in the room asks a follow-up question you can’t answer.
This prompt fixes both problems by treating simplification as a task with rules, not a vibe.
The Prompt, Broken Down
It opens by naming the single problem the document is really about, in one plain sentence. That forces a clear thesis instead of a wandering summary that tries to cover everything at once.
It asks for an everyday comparison, then immediately demands where that comparison breaks down. Analogies clarify and mislead at the same time, and naming the limit up front keeps the reader from over-trusting it.
It defines any unavoidable term inline, the first time it shows up. That beats a glossary nobody scrolls back to read, and it keeps the explanation moving instead of stopping for a sidebar.
It requires a short “why this matters” and a “what it does NOT claim” section. That second part is the real trick here, since it’s what stops a reader from walking away overstating the material, which is the usual failure mode of a simplified explainer.
It caps the length at roughly one page and asks the model to name what got cut if it doesn’t fit. Most length limits just get ignored quietly. This one turns the overflow into information you actually need.
Use Cases 🎯
This prompt earns its keep anywhere a technical document has to survive contact with a mixed room, not just in an academic setting:
- Turning a research paper into a one-pager for a board or investor update.
- Briefing a client on a security audit without burying them in acronyms.
- Prepping a product doc for a sales team that needs the pitch, not the full spec.
- Getting a fast, honest first pass on a paper before deciding if it’s worth a deep read.
In every case, the win is the same. You get an explanation that’s simple without being a lie by omission.
Prompt of the Day
Paste your document in and run this exactly as written:
Turn the document below into a one-page explainer for a smart person with no background in this field.
Do this:
- Start with the single problem this document is really about, in one plain sentence.
- Explain the main idea using a concrete everyday comparison, then immediately say where that comparison breaks down so I don’t over-trust it.
- Define any term I can’t avoid, inline, the first time it appears.
- Include a short “why this matters” and a “what it does NOT claim” so I don’t overstate it.
- Keep it to roughly one page. If it won’t fit, tell me what you cut.
Document:
[paste]
One tweak worth trying: ask for a second pass that lists the three claims a rushed reader would most likely get wrong after reading only the one-pager. It catches the exact misunderstandings the “what it does NOT claim” line is trying to prevent, and it’s a good gut check before you present the summary to anyone else.
Give It a Spin
Grab a document you’ve had to explain badly before, the one where you ended up either boring the room or misleading it. Run it through this prompt and see which parts of your usual “simple” explanation don’t survive.
Then head over to the original thread on r/PromptEngineering and tell the author how it held up on your document. That kind of feedback is what turns a decent prompt into a great one.
Here’s a prompt that turns a dense whitepaper into a one-pager a non-expert can follow
by u/Live_Young831 in PromptEngineering