# Self-Ask

> Self-ask prompting has the model explicitly pose and answer follow-up sub-questions before answering a multi-hop question, a format that can plug a search engine in to answer each sub-question.

- Identifier: PTL-0042
- Category: Reasoning Elicitation
- Canonical URL: https://protologue.com/t/self-ask/
- Introduced: 2022

## Description

Press et al. used it to study the compositionality gap, the tendency of models to answer each sub-question correctly yet fail the composed question.

## Related terms

- [Least-to-Most Prompting](https://protologue.com/t/least-to-most-prompting/)
- [ReAct](https://protologue.com/t/react/)

## Sources

- Press et al. (2022). Measuring and Narrowing the Compositionality Gap in Language Models. https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.03350

## Cite this entry

Protologue. (2026). Self-Ask. In Protologue: A Taxonomy of Prompting and LLM Techniques (v1.0.0, PTL-0042). https://protologue.com/t/self-ask/

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