# Retrieve, Summarize, Plan: Advancing Multi-hop Question Answering with an Iterative Approach

Source: [Retrieve, Summarize, Plan: Advancing Multi-hop Question Answering with an Iterative Approach](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa76cd1e209131cea6f24d>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-26T04:02:16.872Z

Authors: Zhouyu Jiang, Mengshu Sun, Lei Liang, Zhiqiang Zhang

Published: 2024-07-18T02:19:00.000Z

## Abstract

Multi-hop question answering is a challenging task with distinct industrial relevance, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) methods based on large language models (LLMs) have become a popular approach to tackle this task. Owing to the potential inability to retrieve all necessary information in a single iteration, a series of iterative RAG methods has been recently developed, showing significant performance improvements. However, existing methods still face two critical challenges: context overload resulting from multiple rounds of retrieval, and over-planning and repetitive planning due to the lack of a recorded retrieval trajectory. In this paper, we propose a novel iterative RAG method called ReSP, equipped with a dual-function summarizer. This summarizer compresses information from retrieved documents, targeting both the overarching question and the current sub-question concurrently. Experimental results on the multi-hop question-answering datasets HotpotQA and 2WikiMultihopQA demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art, and exhibits excellent robustness concerning context length.

## Recorded benchmark results

A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage.

- [Multi-hop Question Answering on 2WikiMultiHopQA](<https://www.sota2.com/research/sota/multi-hop-question-answering-on-2wikimultihopqa.md>): Multi-hop Question Answering; 2WikiMultihopQA; EM: not recorded.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.13101>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.13101.pdf>)