diff --git a/doc/rtd/explanation/format.rst b/doc/rtd/explanation/format.rst
index 1c073bf53e85..fd1eb8cb5009 100644
--- a/doc/rtd/explanation/format.rst
+++ b/doc/rtd/explanation/format.rst
@@ -5,9 +5,9 @@ User data formats
 
 User data is configuration data provided by a user of a cloud platform to an
 instance at launch. User data can be passed to cloud-init in any of many
-formats documented here. Each format will document a required header or
-content-type that must be present in the user data to be recognized as that
-format.
+formats documented here. Most formats include a header or
+content-type that must be present in the user data to be recognized
+by cloud-init.
 
 Configuration types
 ===================