Balancing Precision and Generalization: Dynamic Instruction Generation for Model Adaptive Zero-Shot Reasoning in LLMs

Current research shows that providing instructions to guide Large Language Models (LLMs) improves reasoning tasks, but existing methods struggle to balance accuracy and generalization. Manually crafted instructions tailored to specific LLMs and tasks improve performance but reduce generalizability, while more general instructions lack detail and lower performance. To address this, we propose a dynamic instruction-generation method using an Instruction-Generation Prompt (IGP). IGP categorizes problems into domains and integrates the model's capabilities to generate detailed task-specific instructions, resulting in a comprehensive plan. This approach achieves high precision with general prompts without requiring in-depth knowledge of LLMs or tasks. We validated our method across five LLMs and ten datasets in three task categories. Our dynamically generated instructions outperformed traditionally handcrafted, LLM-specific instructions across various LLMs and tasks.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Published
2025-07-13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3726302.3730170
Primary Topic
Natural Language Processing Techniques
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

Funders

Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
article

Balancing Precision and Generalization: Dynamic Instruction Generation for Model Adaptive Zero-Shot Reasoning in LLMs

Dongming Zhao, Bo Wang, Yuexian Hou, Ruifang He et al.
Natural Language Processing Techniques
article

Balancing Precision and Generalization: Dynamic Instruction Generation for Model Adaptive Zero-Shot Reasoning in LLMs

Dongming Zhao, Bo Wang, Yuexian Hou, Ruifang He, Jing Liu, Ruihan Zhu
article en

Abstract

Current research shows that providing instructions to guide Large Language Models (LLMs) improves reasoning tasks, but existing methods struggle to balance accuracy and generalization. Manually crafted instructions tailored to specific LLMs and tasks improve performance but reduce generalizability, while more general instructions lack detail and lower performance. To address this, we propose a dynamic instruction-generation method using an Instruction-Generation Prompt (IGP). IGP categorizes problems into domains and integrates the model's capabilities to generate detailed task-specific instructions, resulting in a comprehensive plan. This approach achieves high precision with general prompts without requiring in-depth knowledge of LLMs or tasks. We validated our method across five LLMs and ten datasets in three task categories. Our dynamically generated instructions outperformed traditionally handcrafted, LLM-specific instructions across various LLMs and tasks.

Tianjin University (CN), China Mobile (China) (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Openalex Percentile: Top 92%
Natural Language Processing Techniques
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.