4.2.1. Markdown

TL;DR – copy & paste your ChatGPT responses into your documents with proper formatting by default (page headings, lists, tables, bolded text, etc.)

Markdown is a simple and intuitive way of writing formatted text using plain text syntax. It allows you to easily create headings, lists, tables, and links. Markdown is widely used in certain industries, but has yet to adopted by the legal industry. We believe this will quickly change as ChatGPT and other generative AI tools become widely uses by legal professionals.

Two reasons why we like using Markdown with ChatGPT:

1. Increasing readability of ChatGPT responses

If we provide a simple prompt that simply asks ChatGPT to summarize the Securities Act of 1933, we'll get a response that looks similar to:

The Securities Act of 1933, also known as the "truth in securities" law, was the first significant federal legislation to regulate the offer and sale of securities. It was enacted in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929 to restore investor confidence in the capital markets by providing more structure and government oversight.

Section 2: Definitions

1. Highlight: This section defines the fundamental terminologies used throughout the Act, including "security," "issuer," "underwriter," and "prospectus." This clarification aids in the precise interpretation and application of the Act.

2. Highlight: The broad definition of "security" given in this section has been the basis for the Act's extensive applicability. It covers a range of financial instruments, from traditional stocks and bonds to more complex and exotic derivatives.

...

ChatGPT has done a good job at formatting the response to make it legible. But, we can do better. Let's try adding the following sentence to the original prompt asking ChatGPT to summarize the Securities Act of 1933:

Format the summary using markdown elements such as headings, lists, blockquotes, 
and tables where appropriate.

This simple addition makes a noticeable different to the response returned by ChatGPT...

ChatGPT returns a nicely formatted response using Markdown

2. Streamlining copy+paste of ChatGPT responses into your documents with formatting

What we saw in our first reason above is "rendered" Markdown, which is what we want when we only wish to view a nicely formatted response within ChatGPT. However, if we want to copy+paste the response into our word document it is easier to work with the "raw" Markdown. We can have ChatGPT return the "raw" Markdown by simply including "Return the raw markdown" or something to that tune in our prompt. Using the same example as before, ChatGPT's response would look something like:

 The Securities Act of 1933: An Overview

The Securities Act of 1933, also known as the "truth in securities" law, was the first major federal legislation to regulate the offer and sale of securities. It was enacted following the stock market crash of 1929, with the aim of restoring investor confidence in the capital markets by increasing government oversight and transparency.

 Section 2: Definitions

- : This section provides definitions for key terms used throughout the Act, such as "security," "issuer," "underwriter," and "prospectus." These definitions assist in the interpretation and application of the Act.
...

If you want to learn more about the Markdown syntax elements seen in the response above ("#", "**text**") take a look at the Markdown Cheat Sheet. Copying and pasting the raw Markdown into popular word editing software will automatically format the text according to the Markdown rules. Gone are the days of you having to perform tedious reformatting ☺️.