The article "The Relationship between Recall and Precision" by Michael Buckland and Fredric Gey explores the empirical tendency for Precision to decline as Recall increases in retrieval systems. The authors examine the nature of the relationship between Precision and Recall, considering different assumptions about retrieval performance. They demonstrate that a trade-off between Recall and Precision is unavoidable when retrieval performance consistently exceeds random retrieval. To avoid this trade-off, retrieval performance must be equal to or better than overall retrieval performance up to the point of increasing the number of retrieved documents. The mathematical relationship between Precision and Recall is analyzed, showing that a quadratic Recall curve can resemble empirical Recall-Precision behavior when transformed into a tangent parabola. The article also discusses the advantages of two-stage retrieval, where an initial search emphasizes high Recall followed by a more detailed search of the retrieved subset to improve Precision. This strategy can simultaneously improve both Recall and Precision, though a trade-off remains. The authors conclude that the trade-off between Precision and Recall is inherent and cannot be avoided under certain conditions, but it can be mitigated through strategic retrieval methods.The article "The Relationship between Recall and Precision" by Michael Buckland and Fredric Gey explores the empirical tendency for Precision to decline as Recall increases in retrieval systems. The authors examine the nature of the relationship between Precision and Recall, considering different assumptions about retrieval performance. They demonstrate that a trade-off between Recall and Precision is unavoidable when retrieval performance consistently exceeds random retrieval. To avoid this trade-off, retrieval performance must be equal to or better than overall retrieval performance up to the point of increasing the number of retrieved documents. The mathematical relationship between Precision and Recall is analyzed, showing that a quadratic Recall curve can resemble empirical Recall-Precision behavior when transformed into a tangent parabola. The article also discusses the advantages of two-stage retrieval, where an initial search emphasizes high Recall followed by a more detailed search of the retrieved subset to improve Precision. This strategy can simultaneously improve both Recall and Precision, though a trade-off remains. The authors conclude that the trade-off between Precision and Recall is inherent and cannot be avoided under certain conditions, but it can be mitigated through strategic retrieval methods.