diff --git a/README b/README
index 51cf3f2b..ee46ae32 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,42 +1,41 @@
 Exiv2
 *****
 
-This is Exiv2, a C++ library and a command line utility to read and
-write Exif and Iptc image metadata. The homepage of Exiv2 is:
+Welcome to Exiv2, a C++ library and a command line utility to read and
+write Exif and IPTC image metadata. The homepage of Exiv2 is:
 
     http://www.exiv2.org/
 
-See doc/ChangeLog for a description of recent changes to Exiv2.
-
 Point your browser to doc/index.html for the complete Exiv2 API
-documentation and metadata tags.
+documentation and metadata tag reference.
+
+See doc/ChangeLog for a description of recent changes to Exiv2.
 
 
 Building and Installing
 =======================
 
-To build Exiv2 from the distributed tarball on UNIX-like systems
-(e.g., GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, MinGW), use the included GNU configure
-script. Run the following commands from the top directory (containing
-this file) to configure, build and install the library and utility:
+On UNIX-like systems (including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, MinGW), use the 
+GNU configure script. Run the following commands from the top directory 
+(containing this file) to configure, build and install the library and 
+utility:
 
     $ ./configure
     $ make
     $ make install
 
-If you downloaded the source code directly from the subversion
-repository, you won't have a configure script. Run make config to 
-generate it and see the section "Hacking" below.
+If you downloaded the source code from the subversion repository, you 
+won't have a configure script. Run 'make config' to generate it and see 
+the section "Hacking" below.
 
 zlib (http://www.zlib.net/) is required for PNG support, so you'll need 
-to have the zlib library and header files installed or run configure 
-with the --without-zlib flag.
+to have the zlib library and header files installed or run configure with
+the --without-zlib flag.
 
 The default install locations are /usr/local/lib for the library,
-/usr/local/bin for the exiv2 utility and /usr/local/include/exiv2 for
-the header files. Use the --prefix=directory option of the configure
-script to change this default. Run ./configure --help to see a list of
-all options.
+/usr/local/bin for the exiv2 utility and /usr/local/include/exiv2 for the
+header files. Use the --prefix=directory option of the configure script to
+change the default. Run './configure --help' to see a list of all options.
 
 To build Exiv2 with MSVC 7.1 or 8.0, use the solution file msvc/exiv2.sln.
 
@@ -80,10 +79,10 @@ script as the first step:
 
     $ make config
 
-Then run the usual ./configure; make; make install commands.
+Then run the usual './configure; make; make install' commands.
 
-To generate the documentation (make doc), you will further need
-python, doxygen, graphviz and xsltproc.
+To generate the documentation (run 'make doc'), you will further need
+doxygen, graphviz, python and xsltproc.
 
 Exiv2 uses GNU Libtool in order to build shared libraries on a variety
 of systems. While this is very nice for making usable binaries, it can