# CriticGen: Generation-Aware Evaluation as Actionable Feedback

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.05439 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05439/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Jul 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14168/) (2021)
- [BERTScore: Evaluating Text Generation with BERT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.09675/) (2019)
- [Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17651/) (2023)
- [G-Eval: NLG Evaluation using GPT-4 with Better Human Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16634/) (2023)
- [BLEURT: Learning Robust Metrics for Text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04696/) (2020)
- [Prometheus: Inducing Fine-grained Evaluation Capability in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08491/) (2023)
- [LIMO: Less is More for Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.03387/) (2025)
- [PandaLM: An Automatic Evaluation Benchmark for LLM Instruction Tuning Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05087/) (2023)
- [FLASK: Fine-grained Language Model Evaluation based on Alignment Skill Sets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10928/) (2023)
- [Shepherd: A Critic for Language Model Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04592/) (2023)
- [NaturalReasoning: Reasoning in the Wild with 2.8M Challenging Questions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13124/) (2025)
- [LLaVA-Critic-R1: Your Critic Model is Secretly a Strong Policy Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00676/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Current evaluation methods for large language models are coarse-grained and decoupled from generation, producing generic explanations that fail to provide actionable feedback for model improvement. We propose CriticGen, a fine-grained, generation-aware evaluation framework that turns evaluation into actionable control for answer improvement. CriticGen first generates sample-specific evaluation dimensions and scoring criteria under high-level categories such as subjective, objective, and self-derived constraints. These criteria then serve as a dynamic rubric for jointly producing a score, a reason, an executable refinement suggestion, and a refined answer. This rubric-conditioned refinement process enables models to diagnose flaws and perform targeted answer improvement. Experimental results show that fine-grained evaluation should be both instance-specific and actionable. CriticGen induces higher-quality rubrics, improving relevance/coverage from 3.33/4.03 to 3.97/4.24. CriticGen also achieves the best score correlations, with 0.9556 Pearson and 0.9560 Spearman, and raises the F1 of criterion-grounded reasons and executable suggestions from 0.6369/0.5994 to 0.7554/0.7900. Crucially, its feedback translates into reliable answer improvement, improving 73.17% of answers with a 93.28% non-degradation rate.