How is recall defined in document analysis?

Recall in document analysis refers specifically to the measure of how many of the relevant documents were successfully identified or retrieved as true positives by the system. It is calculated as the ratio of the number of relevant documents that have been retrieved to the total number of relevant documents available within the dataset. This metric is crucial in assessing the performance of information retrieval systems, as it provides insight into the effectiveness of the system in identifying all pertinent documents.

The focus is on capturing the maximum number of relevant documents, which is why the definition pinpoints the percentage of truly positive documents found. It emphasizes the importance of a thorough search and accurate identification of documents that hold significance to the analysis being conducted. In practice, a higher recall indicates that the system has successfully identified a larger portion of the relevant documents, thus providing a greater degree of completeness in the document analysis process.