This digest illustrates the variety of basic and theoretical issues in evaluation with which aspiring evaluators should be conversant in order to claim that they know the knowledge base of their profession. Coverage of the issues includes: the four steps in the logic of evaluation; whether qualitative evaluations are valid; whether it matters if the program being evaluated is new or has existed for many years; differences between evaluating a large program, a local element of that program, or a small element in the project; how to enhance the chances of evaluations' results being used in the short-term to make changes; the role of causal inference in evaluation; the determination of when a question has leverage; and, the definition of meta-evaluation and when it should be used. (Contains 12 references.) (LMD).