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Navigating the Prompt Space: Improving LLM Classification of Social Science Texts Through Prompt Engineering

Erkan Gunes, Christoffer Florczak, Tevfik Murat Yildirim · Mar 26, 2026 · Citations: 0

Automatic Metrics
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How to use this page

Low trust

Use this as background context only. Do not make protocol decisions from this page alone.

Best use

Background context only

What to verify

Validate the evaluation procedure and quality controls in the full paper before operational use.

Evidence quality

Low

Derived from extracted protocol signals and abstract evidence.

Abstract

Recent developments in text classification using Large Language Models (LLMs) in the social sciences suggest that costs can be cut significantly, while performance can sometimes rival existing computational methods. However, with a wide variance in performance in current tests, we move to the question of how to maximize performance. In this paper, we focus on prompt context as a possible avenue for increasing accuracy by systematically varying three aspects of prompt engineering: label descriptions, instructional nudges, and few shot examples. Across two different examples, our tests illustrate that a minimal increase in prompt context yields the highest increase in performance, while further increases in context only tend to yield marginal performance increases thereafter. Alarmingly, increasing prompt context sometimes decreases accuracy. Furthermore, our tests suggest substantial heterogeneity across models, tasks, and batch size, underlining the need for individual validation of each LLM coding task rather than reliance on general rules.

Abstract-only analysis — low confidence

All signals on this page are inferred from the abstract only and may be inaccurate. Do not use this page as a primary protocol reference.

  • This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.
  • The available metadata is too thin to trust this as a primary source.
Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub

Should You Rely On This Paper?

This paper is adjacent to HFEPX scope and is best used for background context, not as a primary protocol reference.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A secondary eval reference to pair with stronger protocol papers.

Main weakness

This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.

Trust level

Low

Usefulness score

0/100 • Low

Treat as adjacent context, not a core eval-method reference.

Human Feedback Signal

Not explicit in abstract metadata

Evaluation Signal

Detected

Usefulness for eval research

Adjacent candidate

Extraction confidence 35%

If you are doing eval pipeline work, start here:

Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub Tool-Use Eval Hub

What We Could Verify

These are the protocol signals we could actually recover from the available paper metadata. Use them to decide whether this paper is worth deeper reading.

Human Feedback Types

missing

None explicit

No explicit feedback protocol extracted.

"Recent developments in text classification using Large Language Models (LLMs) in the social sciences suggest that costs can be cut significantly, while performance can sometimes rival existing computational methods."

Evaluation Modes

partial

Automatic Metrics

Includes extracted eval setup.

"Recent developments in text classification using Large Language Models (LLMs) in the social sciences suggest that costs can be cut significantly, while performance can sometimes rival existing computational methods."

Quality Controls

missing

Not reported

No explicit QC controls found.

"Recent developments in text classification using Large Language Models (LLMs) in the social sciences suggest that costs can be cut significantly, while performance can sometimes rival existing computational methods."

Benchmarks / Datasets

missing

Not extracted

No benchmark anchors detected.

"Recent developments in text classification using Large Language Models (LLMs) in the social sciences suggest that costs can be cut significantly, while performance can sometimes rival existing computational methods."

Reported Metrics

partial

Accuracy

Useful for evaluation criteria comparison.

"In this paper, we focus on prompt context as a possible avenue for increasing accuracy by systematically varying three aspects of prompt engineering: label descriptions, instructional nudges, and few shot examples."

Human Feedback Details

  • Uses human feedback: No
  • Feedback types: None
  • Rater population: Not reported
  • Expertise required: Coding

Evaluation Details

  • Evaluation modes: Automatic Metrics
  • Agentic eval: None
  • Quality controls: Not reported
  • Evidence quality: Low
  • Use this page as: Background context only

Protocol And Measurement Signals

Benchmarks / Datasets

No benchmark or dataset names were extracted from the available abstract.

Reported Metrics

accuracy

Research Brief

Metadata summary

Recent developments in text classification using Large Language Models (LLMs) in the social sciences suggest that costs can be cut significantly, while performance can sometimes rival existing computational methods.

Based on abstract + metadata only. Check the source paper before making high-confidence protocol decisions.

Key Takeaways

  • Recent developments in text classification using Large Language Models (LLMs) in the social sciences suggest that costs can be cut significantly, while performance can sometimes rival existing computational methods.
  • However, with a wide variance in performance in current tests, we move to the question of how to maximize performance.
  • In this paper, we focus on prompt context as a possible avenue for increasing accuracy by systematically varying three aspects of prompt engineering: label descriptions, instructional nudges, and few shot examples.

Researcher Actions

  • Compare this paper against nearby papers in the same arXiv category before using it for protocol decisions.
  • Validate inferred eval signals (Automatic metrics) against the full paper.
  • Use related-paper links to find stronger protocol-specific references.

Caveats

  • Generated from abstract + metadata only; no PDF parsing.
  • Signals below are heuristic and may miss details reported outside the abstract.

Recommended Queries

Accuracy

Research Summary

Contribution Summary

  • In this paper, we focus on prompt context as a possible avenue for increasing accuracy by systematically varying three aspects of prompt engineering: label descriptions, instructional nudges, and few shot examples.
  • Alarmingly, increasing prompt context sometimes decreases accuracy.

Why It Matters For Eval

  • Abstract shows limited direct human-feedback or evaluation-protocol detail; use as adjacent methodological context.

Researcher Checklist

  • Gap: Human feedback protocol is explicit

    No explicit human feedback protocol detected.

  • Pass: Evaluation mode is explicit

    Detected: Automatic Metrics

  • Gap: Quality control reporting appears

    No calibration/adjudication/IAA control explicitly detected.

  • Gap: Benchmark or dataset anchors are present

    No benchmark/dataset anchor extracted from abstract.

  • Pass: Metric reporting is present

    Detected: accuracy

Related Papers

Papers are ranked by protocol overlap, extraction signal alignment, and semantic proximity.

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