  With recent advances in the precision of inclusive lepton--nuclear scattering
experiments, it has become apparent that comparable improvements are needed in
the accuracy of the theoretical analysis tools. In particular, when extracting
parton distribution functions in the large-x region, it is crucial to correct
the data for effects associated with the nonzero mass of the target. We present
here a comprehensive review of these target mass corrections (TMC) to structure
functions data, summarizing the relevant formulas for TMCs in electromagnetic
and weak processes. We include a full analysis of both hadronic and partonic
masses, and trace how these effects appear in the operator product expansion
and the factorized parton model formalism, as well as their limitations when
applied to data in the x->1 limit. We evaluate the numerical effects of TMCs on
various structure functions, and compare fits to data with and without these
corrections.
