diff --git a/man3/assert.3 b/man3/assert.3
index af3509004..8833d29ce 100644
--- a/man3/assert.3
+++ b/man3/assert.3
@@ -38,14 +38,21 @@ assert \- abort the program if assertion is false
 This macro can help programmers find bugs in their programs,
 or handle exceptional cases
 via a crash that will produce limited debugging output.
-The function will print an error message to standard error
-(e.g., "assertion failed in file foo.c, function do_bar(), line 1287")
-and terminate the program by calling
-.BR abort (3)
-if
+
+If
 .I expression
-is false (i.e., compares equal to zero).
-.LP
+is false (i.e., compares equal to zero),
+.BR assert ()
+prints an error message to standard error
+and terminates the program by calling
+.BR abort (3).
+The error message includes the name of the file and function containing the
+.BR assert ()
+call, the source code line number of the call, and the text of the argument;
+something like:
+
+    prog: some_file.c:16: some_func: Assertion `val == 0' failed.
+
 If the macro
 .B NDEBUG
 is defined at the moment