diff --git a/Doc/library/codecs.rst b/Doc/library/codecs.rst
index 4d5058e..90bd0dd 100644
--- a/Doc/library/codecs.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/codecs.rst
@@ -458,7 +458,8 @@
 
    .. method:: reset()
 
-      Reset the encoder to the initial state.
+      Reset the encoder to the initial state. The output is discarded: call
+      ``.encode('', final=True)`` to reset the encoder and to get the output.
 
 
 .. method:: IncrementalEncoder.getstate()