attribution accuracy

**Attribution accuracy** is the **correctness of assigning generated statements to the proper originating evidence source, author, or document context** - it ensures the system does not mis-credit information provenance. **What Is Attribution accuracy?** - **Definition**: Quality measure for whether each claim is attributed to the right source entity. - **Difference from Citation Accuracy**: Citation checks support presence, while attribution checks source identity correctness. - **Attribution Targets**: May include document ID, organization, system of record, or publication owner. - **Pipeline Touchpoints**: Depends on metadata integrity through ingestion, retrieval, and final rendering. **Why Attribution accuracy Matters** - **Governance Integrity**: Incorrect attribution can create legal, policy, or contractual issues. - **Analyst Confidence**: Users need to know exactly where evidence originates. - **Error Prevention**: Mis-attribution can lead teams to consult the wrong system of record. - **Model Accountability**: Attribution logs support incident review and root-cause analysis. - **Knowledge Hygiene**: Accurate origin mapping improves long-term content maintenance. **How It Is Used in Practice** - **Stable Source IDs**: Preserve immutable provenance keys from ingestion through answer rendering. - **Cross-Check Rules**: Validate that cited claims map to source metadata and not just similar text. - **Evaluation Sets**: Build labeled attribution benchmarks for recurring high-impact query types. Attribution accuracy is **a critical provenance-quality metric in enterprise RAG** - strong attribution controls keep answers verifiable, auditable, and operationally safe.