Prompts
Build a dated timeline from your notes
Turns scattered notes into one dated table with a confidence column and a separate list of everything that has no date, instead of a smooth story with invented dates.
What may go into it: Only after identifying details are removed
The prompt
Answer in [ANSWER LANGUAGE], even if the material below is in another language. Below are notes from several sources, with names and identifying details already removed. Build a timeline from them. Rules: 1. Use only what the notes say. Infer nothing. Never calculate or guess a date. 2. One row per event. If two notes describe the same event, merge them into one row and list both sources. 3. If an event has no date, it goes in the undated list, not in the table. 4. Mark each row STATED if the note gives the date, or UNCLEAR if the note is ambiguous about it. 5. Copy each date in the form the note wrote it. Where the notes mix digits, ١٢٣ alongside 123, or write one date two ways, keep both and mark the row UNCLEAR. 6. Name people only by the label the notes use. Never replace a label with a real name. Give me, in this order: A. A table with these columns: date, what happened, where, who the note names, source note, STATED or UNCLEAR. B. Undated events, as a list, each with its source note. C. Contradictions between the notes, quoted on both sides. D. What a reader would need next to close each contradiction. If you are reading on a phone, replace the table with one block per row: a heading line, then one short labelled line per column. Notes: [PASTE THE REDACTED NOTES]
Opens a new chat in that tool with this prompt already typed in. Fill in every box first, and read the line at the top about what may go into it.
25 minutes · Gives you a table · How much to paste at once: Paste ten to twenty numbered notes at a time. If the table stops before the last note number you pasted, or section D never arrives, it was cut off: run the rest as a second batch and join the tables yourself.
Read the answer against the checks below before you use it in anything that leaves your organisation.
What to fill in
- [ANSWER LANGUAGE]: the language you need the timeline in, for example Arabic, Kurdish Sorani or English. The notes can stay in another language.
- [PASTE THE REDACTED NOTES]. These are notes with names and identifying details taken out first, replaced by labels such as Person A and Village 1.
- Number the notes before you paste them, so the column "source note" points at something you can find again.
- Keep the key that says who each label is on paper, offline, and never in this prompt.
Before you trust the answer
- Read section C first. Contradictions are the finding, not a defect in your notes.
- Check every UNCLEAR row against the note it came from, and check that no real name has come back into the table.
- A timeline this produces is a working draft. Nothing in it is evidence until a person has taken it back to the original source.
When it goes wrong
It will turn "late last year" into a precise date such as 12 December and mark that row STATED.
Tools this is written for
Written 2026-09-01Nobody has run this prompt in this language yet, so read the answer twice.
- Never for sensitive materialHas a free versionWorks in Iraq
- Never for sensitive materialHas a free versionWorks in Iraq
- Never for sensitive materialHas a free versionWorks in Iraq
Where to go next
- The task this belongs toResearch
- Staying safeClassify the material first
Written forHuman rights activistResearcher or analystLegal work and accountability