diff --git a/docs/forms.txt b/docs/forms.txt
index f76f6d27ef..ce1010235f 100644
--- a/docs/forms.txt
+++ b/docs/forms.txt
@@ -517,10 +517,10 @@ to put punctuation at the end of your validation messages.
 When are validators called?
 ---------------------------
 
-After a form has been submitted, Django first checks to see that all the
-required fields are present and non-empty. For each field that passes that
-test *and if the form submission contained data* for that field, all the
-validators for that field are called in turn. The emphasized portion in the
+After a form has been submitted, Django validates each field in turn. First, 
+if the field is required, Django checks that it is present and non-empty. Then,
+if that test passes *and the form submission contained data* for that field, all
+the validators for that field are called in turn. The emphasized portion in the
 last sentence is important: if a form field is not submitted (because it
 contains no data -- which is normal HTML behavior), the validators are not
 run against the field.