# Exemplar Ordering

> Exemplar ordering is the arrangement of demonstrations within a few-shot prompt, which can swing accuracy from near state-of-the-art to near chance for the same set of examples.

- Identifier: PTL-0020
- Category: Exemplars & In-Context Learning
- Canonical URL: https://protologue.com/t/exemplar-ordering/
- Also known as: demonstration order, order sensitivity

## Description

Lu et al. documented this order sensitivity and proposed selecting performant orderings using a probe set generated by the model itself. The effect is a key reason few-shot results should be reported across several permutations.

## Broader terms

- [Few-shot Prompting](https://protologue.com/t/few-shot-prompting/)

## Related terms

- [Exemplar Selection](https://protologue.com/t/exemplar-selection/)
- [Few-shot Calibration](https://protologue.com/t/few-shot-calibration/)
- [Prompt Sensitivity](https://protologue.com/t/prompt-sensitivity/)

## Sources

- Lu et al. (2021). Fantastically Ordered Prompts and Where to Find Them: Overcoming Few-Shot Prompt Order Sensitivity. https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.08786

## Cite this entry

Protologue. (2026). Exemplar Ordering. In Protologue: A Taxonomy of Prompting and LLM Techniques (v1.0.0, PTL-0020). https://protologue.com/t/exemplar-ordering/

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