The document discusses the evaluation of information retrieval systems. Evaluation is defined as systematically determining a subject's merit using a set of standards. The main purposes of evaluation are to compare the performance of different systems, assess how well systems meet their goals, and identify ways to improve effectiveness. Evaluation can consider managerial or user viewpoints. Common criteria include recall, precision, fallout, generality, effectiveness, efficiency, usability, satisfaction, and cost. Recall measures the proportion of relevant documents retrieved while precision measures the proportion of retrieved documents that are relevant. Evaluation helps identify ways to improve information retrieval system performance.