diff --git a/doc/src/dump_modify.rst b/doc/src/dump_modify.rst
index d3a79ab073..b25e5815a7 100644
--- a/doc/src/dump_modify.rst
+++ b/doc/src/dump_modify.rst
@@ -673,8 +673,8 @@ significant imbalance in number of lines of per-atom info. The *balance*
 keyword determines whether the number of lines in each processor
 snapshot are balanced to be nearly the same. A balance value of *no*
 means no balancing will be done, while *yes* means balancing will be
-performed.  For a serial run, this option is ignored since the output is
-already balanced. 
+performed. This balancing preserves dump sorting order. For a serial
+run, this option is ignored since the output is already balanced. 
 
 .. note::