Retrieval Augmented Generation

Can anyone recommend:

1. A paper or two you consider essential to learning about RAG?
2. A practical toy example & dataset I could build to cement that theoretical knowledge?

I have a SWE background, but am also our local ML/data guy. I think this tech could benefit us, but I’m having trouble cutting through the hype. TIA.

benefit build data datascience dataset example knowledge paper practical rag retrieval retrieval augmented generation swe tech think through