Usage Recommendation for DeepSeek-R1

Use clear, structured prompts with explicit instructions

Avoid few-shot prompting; use zero-shot instead 1. Output Formatting:

Specify the desired format (JSON, tables, markdown)

Request step-by-step explanations for reasoning tasks 1. Language:

Explicitly specify input/output language to prevent mixing The paper also summarizes when to use the different model variants, when to fine-tune, and other safety considerations.