diff --git a/Doc/howto/descriptor.rst b/Doc/howto/descriptor.rst
index 493f6aed0e466c..37ba6a8bfb60d8 100644
--- a/Doc/howto/descriptor.rst
+++ b/Doc/howto/descriptor.rst
@@ -258,10 +258,10 @@ to wrap access to the value attribute in a property data descriptor::
 
     class Cell(object):
         . . .
-        def getvalue(self, obj):
-            "Recalculate cell before returning value"
+        def getvalue(self):
+            "Recalculate the cell before returning value"
             self.recalc()
-            return obj._value
+            return self._value
         value = property(getvalue)