diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
index 5bd795e5db..927f7329a5 100644
--- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -153,7 +153,9 @@ files you are modifying to see the current conventions.
 
 [[summary-section]]
 The title sentence after the "area:" prefix omits the full stop at the
-end, and its first word is not capitalized unless there is a reason to
+end, and its first word is not capitalized (the omission
+of capitalization applies only to the word after the "area:"
+prefix of the title) unless there is a reason to
 capitalize it other than because it is the first word in the sentence.
 E.g. "doc: clarify...", not "doc: Clarify...", or "githooks.txt:
 improve...", not "githooks.txt: Improve...".  But "refs: HEAD is also