RaFe: Ranking Feedback Improves Query Rewriting for RAG

Shengyu Mao, Yong Jiang, Boli Chen, Xiao Li, Peng Wang, Xinyu Wang, Pengjun Xie, Fei Huang, Huajun Chen, Ningyu Zhang


Abstract
As Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval Augmentation Generation (RAG) techniques have evolved, query rewriting has been widely incorporated into the RAG system for downstream tasks like open-domain QA to enhance document retrieval by reformulating queries. Many works have attempted to improve query rewriting in smaller models to avoid rewriting with costly LLMs, and the most common method is to employ reinforcement learning for feedback training. However, current methods require annotations (labeled relevant documents or downstream answers) or predesigned rewards for feedback, lack generalization, and fail to utilize signals tailored for query rewriting. In this paper, we propose RaFe, a framework for training query rewriting models. By leveraging reranker, RaFe provides ranking feedback aligned well with the rewriting objectives without needing signals from annotations and supports both online and offline training models. Experimental results demonstrate that with a general and publicly available reranker, RaFe can effectively steer the training for rewrite models.
Anthology ID:
2024.findings-emnlp.49
Volume:
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2024
Month:
November
Year:
2024
Address:
Miami, Florida, USA
Editors:
Yaser Al-Onaizan, Mohit Bansal, Yun-Nung Chen
Venue:
Findings
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
884–901
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.findings-emnlp.49
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Shengyu Mao, Yong Jiang, Boli Chen, Xiao Li, Peng Wang, Xinyu Wang, Pengjun Xie, Fei Huang, Huajun Chen, and Ningyu Zhang. 2024. RaFe: Ranking Feedback Improves Query Rewriting for RAG. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2024, pages 884–901, Miami, Florida, USA. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
RaFe: Ranking Feedback Improves Query Rewriting for RAG (Mao et al., Findings 2024)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.findings-emnlp.49.pdf
Software:
 2024.findings-emnlp.49.software.zip