Resources

Claude has a research function that searches the web, reads sources, synthesizes findings, and gives you a report-style answer with real citations. It’s powerful. It’s also wasted on most people because they use it the wrong way.

The wrong way: toggle research mode on, ask a vague question, hope for the best.

The right way: use the chat to craft a careful research prompt first, then toggle research mode on, then paste that crafted prompt in.

Why the two-step matters

Research mode is expensive in terms of time and tokens. When you ask a vague question with research on, Claude has to guess what you actually want, search broadly, and you often get back something that’s comprehensive but not useful — because it answered a question slightly different from the one you actually had.

When you craft the prompt first with Claude’s help (with research mode off), you’re using Claude’s normal conversational ability to refine the question. You explain what you’re trying to accomplish, what you already know, what kind of answer would actually help. Claude can sharpen your question, identify the right framing, and produce a prompt that will get a useful research answer.

Then you toggle research on and paste the refined prompt. You get back something specific to your actual need, not a generic survey.

The actual workflow

1. Open Claude. Research mode OFF.
2. Tell Claude what you’re trying to learn, and why. Be specific about your real situation. Example: “I’m considering switching homeowners insurance providers in Erie, PA. I’m currently with [provider]. I want to understand the actual differences between the major providers I have access to, focused on storm damage and roof replacement coverage, since my house is on a wooded lot.”
3. Ask Claude to help you craft a research prompt for the question. Say something like: “Help me craft a research prompt that would get me a useful, actionable answer to that question. Make sure it asks for current data and is specific enough that I won’t get back a generic overview.”
4. Claude gives you back a refined research prompt. Read it. Edit it. Make sure it asks for what you actually want.
5. Toggle on research mode in Claude.
6. Paste the refined prompt in and let Claude do the research.
7. You get back a real, sourced answer to your real question — not a generic Wikipedia-style overview.

When research mode is worth using

Research mode is worth it when:

• You’re making a decision and want actual current data and named sources
• You’re researching something where claims need backing (medical, legal, financial)
• You want comparative information across multiple sources
• You specifically want recent developments, not training-data-era info

Research mode is not worth using for:

• Casual questions where your existing knowledge is enough
• Brainstorming or writing, where you want Claude’s reasoning, not external sources
• Coding help, where you want Claude’s existing capabilities
• Anything where you already trust the answer from regular chat

The honest caveat

Research mode uses significantly more time and tokens than regular chat. On limited plans, this matters. Save it for questions where source-backed depth is genuinely valuable. Don’t waste it on questions where regular Claude would have done fine.

The broader principle this fits into: AI used well requires intentionality. The same difference between “write my essay” and “attack my argument and find the holes” applies here — between toggling research on and crafting the prompt first. The tool isn’t the question. How you use it is.

The biggest mistake people make when they start with Claude is treating it like a search engine — type a question, get an answer, move on. The real value comes when you apply it to something you already know about. Your work. Your field of study. The decision you’re wrestling with at home. That’s where it stops being a novelty and starts being a productivity tool.

If you’re still in school, pick a project from one of your classes and run it through Claude. Don’t have it do the work for you. Use it to test your own thinking. Ask it to argue against the position in your paper. Ask it to find the weakness in your math. Ask it to summarize three papers in your field that you haven’t read yet, then go read them. The point is to leverage what you already know — not to replace it.

If you’re already employed, the move is the same. Take something you do every week at your job — a report, a sales pitch, a customer email, prep for a meeting — and try doing it with Claude as your second set of eyes. You’ll find shortcuts you didn’t know existed. You’ll find ideas you wouldn’t have come up with alone. Show your manager what you figured out. That’s how you become the person at the company everyone goes to for help with AI, which is a much better position than the person worried about being replaced by it.

The same applies at home — brainstorming a side project, planning a renovation, working through a family decision. Once you start using it on real things in your real life, the awkwardness goes away fast.

The feature that changes everything: Projects

One specific Claude feature that makes all of this much more powerful: Projects. A Project is a dedicated workspace for one topic — your job, a class, a side hustle, a research area, your finances. Inside a Project, you can start as many separate chats as you want, and Claude carries the context across all of them. Day-to-day brainstorming, week-to-week thinking, all building up in one place instead of starting from scratch every time you open a new chat.

Even better, you can give each Project its own custom instructions — telling Claude how you want it to behave whenever you work inside that Project. Be more skeptical. Be concise. Always cite sources. Stay in the voice of a marketing analyst. Push back when I’m wrong. Whatever fits the work. Once those instructions are set, every chat in that Project follows them, automatically.

That’s how you stop having the same conversations over and over and start having a relationship with the tool that compounds week to week.

One more thing

If any of this is interesting to you, feel free to reach out. While I have the bandwidth, I’m happy to share what I’ve figured out about configuring Claude to do what you actually want, and using it to genuinely enhance both your work and personal productivity. Contact info is on my Bio page.

— Dennis

I keep meeting young people who did everything right — finished the degree, worked hard — and still can’t get a foot in the door. Some are doing manual labor to pay the bills while the career they trained for stays out of reach. If that’s you, or someone you love, this is for you.

Here’s the plain truth as I see it. AI isn’t going to wait for any of us to feel ready. The people who learn to use it well, early, are going to have an edge — the same way the first people who learned computers did. Not because AI is magic, and not because it’s the answer to everything. Because it’s a tool, and most people haven’t picked it up yet. That gap is an opening.

So here’s a concrete, free thing you can do this week.

The company that makes the AI I use, Anthropic, runs a free training site called Anthropic Academy. You sign up with just an email — no credit card, nothing to buy. The courses are self-paced, and each one you finish gives you an official certificate you can add to your LinkedIn profile. For someone trying to show they’re ahead of the curve, that’s a real, current signal — and it costs nothing but your time.

If you’ve never touched this stuff, start with these (no coding required):

• Claude 101 — the basics of using it for everyday work
• AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations — how to think about when to use it and when not to
• Introduction to Claude Cowork — if you work with files and documents
• AI Capabilities and Limitations — so you know what it can and can’t do

You’ll find them at anthropic.com/learn.

I’ll be straight with you: a certificate is not a job, and no course fixes a tough market on its own. But it’s a way to build a skill employers are actively looking for, and to walk into an interview able to say, “I know how to use this.” That’s worth a weekend.

Use it as a tool. Don’t hide behind it, don’t let it think for you, and don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s the whole answer. Pick it up, get good at it, and put it to work for the life you want.

— Dennis