diff --git a/Doc/library/shutil.rst b/Doc/library/shutil.rst
index a785682c0f0..8b4aabbb717 100644
--- a/Doc/library/shutil.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/shutil.rst
@@ -269,7 +269,8 @@ Archiving operations
    *owner* and *group* are used when creating a tar archive. By default,
    uses the current owner and group.
 
-   *logger* is an instance of :class:`logging.Logger`.
+   *logger* must be an object compatible with :pep:`282`, usually an instance of
+   :class:`logging.Logger`.
 
    .. versionadded:: 3.2