The document describes Reed-Solomon error correcting codes. It begins by defining error correcting codes and their use of redundancy to recover corrupted data. It then discusses encoding messages into codewords by evaluating polynomials over finite fields and transmitting the codewords. The relationship between code rate, relative distance and error correction capability is also covered, along with the Singleton bound. Reed-Solomon codes specifically encode messages as polynomial coefficients and evaluate the polynomials at predefined points to generate codewords.