diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 040eee14546605d96ac276e3720a1ca892fadc33..d04604e9b70708641e7a757a26798860e2acbec1 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ the conventions of [Conventional Commits (v1.0.0-beta.2)](https://www.convention
 
 - Commit messages starting with `fix: ` trigger a patch version bump
 - Commit messages starting with `feat: ` trigger a minor version bump
-- Commit messages starting with `BREAKING CHANGE: ` trigger a major version bump.
+- Commit messages having a footer with `BREAKING CHANGE: ` trigger a major version bump.
 
 ## Automatic versioning
 
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ you may prefer to ignore the prefix on each individual commit and instead add
 an empty commit sumarizing your changes like so:
 
 ```
-git commit --allow-empty -m '[BREAKING CHANGE|feat|fix]: <changelog summary message
+git commit --allow-empty -m '[feat|fix]: <changelog summary message
 
 ### Stable tag