Phase 4 · Gemini · Level 1 · Foundations
Your turn: a hands-on exercise
By the end, you'll be able to…
- Run the full Gemini loop end to end on a real task without a guide
- Check Gemini's output against the source and correct it in the chat
- Judge whether a finished draft is good enough to use
Why it matters
You learn these tools by using them, not by reading about them. This exercise uses the free Gemini app, so anyone with a Google account can do it with no in-app features needed, to take a real task from start to finish and, crucially, to catch a mistake yourself. Fifteen minutes here will teach you more than any amount of reading.
What you'll do
You'll use the free Gemini app to take a messy email thread, summarise it, draft a reply, and, the part that matters, check Gemini's work and correct it before you'd send anything. It's the same loop as the walkthrough, but this time you drive, and you decide when it's good enough.
All you need is a Google account and a web browser. If you have safe material of your own you'd rather use, you can, but read the privacy note first. Otherwise we'll point you at a ready-made Fernway file so you don't have to invent one.
Before you start
- A Google account (the free kind you'd use for Gmail or YouTube).
- A web browser, open at gemini.google.com.
- Fifteen quiet minutes.
Privacy note. Use non-sensitive text for this exercise. Keep real names, addresses, account numbers and confidential work details out of the box. It's a good habit from day one, and the reason the Fernway fallback exists.
Your raw material
Download the Fernway email thread. It's a short internal exchange between three Fernway colleagues (Tom, Priya and Maya) working out a scheduling clash between a new-starter onboarding week and a big account renewal. It ends in a compromise. Your job is to make sense of it and draft a tidy confirmation.
If you'd rather use your own email, pick one that's a genuine back-and-forth with a decision in it. That's what makes the exercise work.
The steps
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Open Gemini. Go to gemini.google.com, sign in, and start a fresh chat.
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Summarise the thread. Paste the thread under a prompt like:
"Summarise this email thread in three short bullet points, and tell me clearly what was finally agreed and who agreed to do what. Only use what's in the thread. Here's the thread:"
Read what comes back. Did it capture the actual compromise, that onboarding stays in the week of 18 August, but the sales-shadowing sessions move to Monday 25 August?
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Check it against the thread, on purpose. Skim the real emails against the summary. Ask yourself: did Gemini get the agreed dates right? Did it correctly attribute the compromise to Maya? Did it invent anything nobody said? Note anything off. Finding one mistake here is a success, not a failure. It's the whole point of the exercise.
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Correct it if needed. If the summary got a detail wrong, fix it in the chat rather than starting over:
"The sales-shadowing sessions move to Monday 25 August, not the whole onboarding week. Correct that and show me the summary again."
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Draft a confirmation reply. Now ask for the follow-up you'd actually send:
"Write a short, warm reply from Tom confirming he's happy with the compromise: onboarding stays the week of 18 August, sales-shadowing moves to Monday 25 August. Thank Maya for the sensible idea. Keep it under 80 words and don't add any dates or details that aren't in the thread."
Notice you handed Gemini the decision and the exact dates. It can only be as accurate as the facts you give it.
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Refine it at least once. Whatever comes back, nudge it: "a little less formal", "shorten by half", "add a line offering to redo the schedule". Watch how the reply changes. This back-and-forth is the real skill.
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Read the final version yourself. Check it says what you meant, sounds right, and gets every date correct. If you were really sending it, this is the moment you'd catch anything off, so catch it now.
Checklist
Tick these off as you go:
- [ ] I opened gemini.google.com and started a fresh chat.
- [ ] I got a summary and read the real thread against it.
- [ ] I actively looked for a mistake in the summary (and corrected one if I found it).
- [ ] I asked for a draft reply, giving Gemini the exact dates and decision.
- [ ] I refined the reply at least once.
- [ ] I read the final version and judged whether I'd be happy to send it.
Self-check
Ask yourself honestly:
- Did the summary match the thread? If it flipped a date or misattributed the compromise, that's your reminder always to check its work, and proof of why this habit matters.
- Did giving it the dates improve the reply? It should have. Gemini can't include facts you don't provide, and if it tries to fill the gap it may guess wrong.
- Did refining help? If the second version beat the first, you've just felt why the first answer is only ever a draft.
- Would you actually send it? If not, what's missing: a fact, a warmer tone, a shorter length? Being able to name the gap is the skill.
Common mistakes
- Accepting the first draft. The exercise asks you to refine on purpose; the jump from draft one to draft two is the point.
- Skipping the check. If you don't compare the summary to the thread, you'll never catch the kind of quiet error (a wrong date, a made-up owner) that causes real trouble.
- Leaving out the facts. If you don't tell Gemini the agreed dates, it can't include them, and may invent something instead.
- Over-trusting because it's fluent. A confident, well-written summary can still be wrong. Fluent isn't correct. The reading-it-yourself step is what keeps you safe.
- Pasting in real sensitive details. For practice, use the Fernway thread or make something up. Keep genuine personal data out of the box.
Keeping current
The loop you just ran (paste, summarise, check, correct, draft, refine, read) is durable and works in any assistant. If the Gemini screen looks different from these steps, trust your screen and check Google's Gemini Apps updates and Gemini Apps Help. Accurate as of 13 July 2026.