# Self-Correction

> Self-correction is the general practice of having a language model review and revise its own output, either from its own judgment alone (intrinsic self-correction) or using external feedback such as tool results, tests, or retrieved evidence.

- Identifier: PTL-0117
- Category: Self-Critique & Verification
- Canonical URL: https://protologue.com/t/self-correction/
- Also known as: intrinsic self-correction, self-revision
- Introduced: 2023

## Description

Research has found that intrinsic self-correction does not reliably improve reasoning accuracy and can make answers worse, because the model often cannot tell which of its answers are wrong. Self-correction works best when the critique is grounded in something the model cannot fake, such as running code, executing a search, or checking against a reference.

## Narrower terms

- [CRITIC](https://protologue.com/t/critic/)

## Related terms

- [Self-Refine](https://protologue.com/t/self-refine/)
- [Reflexion](https://protologue.com/t/reflexion/)
- [Chain-of-Verification](https://protologue.com/t/chain-of-verification/)
- [Evaluator-Optimizer](https://protologue.com/t/evaluator-optimizer/)

## Sources

- Huang et al. (2023). Large Language Models Cannot Self-Correct Reasoning Yet. https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.01798

## Cite this entry

Protologue. (2026). Self-Correction. In Protologue: A Taxonomy of Prompting and LLM Techniques (v1.4.0, PTL-0117). https://protologue.com/t/self-correction/

License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)