IterKey: Iterative Keyword Generation with LLMs for Enhanced Retrieval Augmented Generation

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hayashi, Kazuki, Kamigaito, Hidetaka, Kouda, Shinya, Watanabe, Taro
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866908472363188224
author Hayashi, Kazuki
Kamigaito, Hidetaka
Kouda, Shinya
Watanabe, Taro
author_facet Hayashi, Kazuki
Kamigaito, Hidetaka
Kouda, Shinya
Watanabe, Taro
contents Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has emerged as a way to complement the in-context knowledge of Large Language Models (LLMs) by integrating external documents. However, real-world applications demand not only accuracy but also interpretability. While dense retrieval methods provide high accuracy, they lack interpretability; conversely, sparse retrieval methods offer transparency but often fail to capture the full intent of queries due to their reliance on keyword matching. To address these issues, we introduce IterKey, an LLM-driven iterative keyword generation framework that enhances RAG via sparse retrieval. IterKey consists of three LLM-driven stages: generating keywords for retrieval, generating answers based on retrieved documents, and validating the answers. If validation fails, the process iteratively repeats with refined keywords. Across four QA tasks, experimental results show that IterKey achieves 5% to 20% accuracy improvements over BM25-based RAG and simple baselines. Its performance is comparable to dense retrieval-based RAG and prior iterative query refinement methods using dense models. In summary, IterKey is a novel BM25-based approach leveraging LLMs to iteratively refine RAG, effectively balancing accuracy with interpretability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_08450
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle IterKey: Iterative Keyword Generation with LLMs for Enhanced Retrieval Augmented Generation
Hayashi, Kazuki
Kamigaito, Hidetaka
Kouda, Shinya
Watanabe, Taro
Computation and Language
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has emerged as a way to complement the in-context knowledge of Large Language Models (LLMs) by integrating external documents. However, real-world applications demand not only accuracy but also interpretability. While dense retrieval methods provide high accuracy, they lack interpretability; conversely, sparse retrieval methods offer transparency but often fail to capture the full intent of queries due to their reliance on keyword matching. To address these issues, we introduce IterKey, an LLM-driven iterative keyword generation framework that enhances RAG via sparse retrieval. IterKey consists of three LLM-driven stages: generating keywords for retrieval, generating answers based on retrieved documents, and validating the answers. If validation fails, the process iteratively repeats with refined keywords. Across four QA tasks, experimental results show that IterKey achieves 5% to 20% accuracy improvements over BM25-based RAG and simple baselines. Its performance is comparable to dense retrieval-based RAG and prior iterative query refinement methods using dense models. In summary, IterKey is a novel BM25-based approach leveraging LLMs to iteratively refine RAG, effectively balancing accuracy with interpretability.
title IterKey: Iterative Keyword Generation with LLMs for Enhanced Retrieval Augmented Generation
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.08450