Module 2 · Prompting — getting a real answer Lesson 4 of 15
How NotebookLM reads what you type
Context, instructions and roles. It answers from the sources in the notebook and nothing else, and it shows which passage each line came from. Understanding what the model can see — and what it has already forgotten — explains almost every disappointing answer you will get.
The concept
It answers from the sources in the notebook and nothing else, and it shows which passage each line came from. This is the machinery. A model does not remember your last conversation the way a person does; it is handed text and asked to continue it well. Everything you want it to know has to be in that text, in the same window.
There is a difference between a system instruction — the standing context, set once — and a message, which is this request. Put your standing context in the standing place. "I am a final-year mechanical engineering student applying for data roles" belongs in your profile, not typed again at the start of every chat.
And there is a hard limit. When a conversation gets long enough, the earliest turns fall out of view. Symptoms: it contradicts an instruction you gave ten messages ago, or forgets the file you uploaded. The fix is a new conversation with a written summary of where you got to, not a longer argument.
Worked example
Ask a question the sources do not cover and it tells you so, which is the rarest and most useful behaviour any of these tools has.
Your practice task
Ask the same question twice: once on its own, once after a short paragraph of setup about who you are and what you need. Compare the two answers and write down the difference. That gap is the thing you are learning to control.
Do this before moving on. Reading a solution teaches the shape of it; typing it teaches you.
Key takeaway
It answers from the sources in the notebook and nothing else, and it shows which passage each line came from.
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