diff --git a/Doc/tutorial/modules.rst b/Doc/tutorial/modules.rst
index accc30649f2..fd594fd97af 100644
--- a/Doc/tutorial/modules.rst
+++ b/Doc/tutorial/modules.rst
@@ -425,9 +425,9 @@ your package (expressed in terms of a hierarchical filesystem):
 When importing the package, Python searches through the directories on
 ``sys.path`` looking for the package subdirectory.
 
-The :file:`__init__.py` files are required to make Python treat the directories
-as containing packages; this is done to prevent directories with a common name,
-such as ``string``, from unintentionally hiding valid modules that occur later
+The :file:`__init__.py` files are required to make Python treat directories
+containing the file as packages.  This prevents directories with a common name,
+such as ``string``, unintentionally hiding valid modules that occur later
 on the module search path. In the simplest case, :file:`__init__.py` can just be
 an empty file, but it can also execute initialization code for the package or
 set the ``__all__`` variable, described later.