diff --git a/Doc/library/tarfile.rst b/Doc/library/tarfile.rst
--- a/Doc/library/tarfile.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/tarfile.rst
@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ higher-level functions in :ref:`shutil <
 
 Some facts and figures:
 
-* reads and writes :mod:`gzip` and :mod:`bz2` compressed archives.
+* reads and writes gzip'ed (if the :mod:`gzip` module is available) and bzip2'ed
+  (using the :mod:`bz2` module) compressed archives.
 
 * read/write support for the POSIX.1-1988 (ustar) format.
 
@@ -159,34 +160,7 @@ The :mod:`tarfile` module defines the fo
    Is raised by :meth:`TarInfo.frombuf` if the buffer it gets is invalid.
 
 
-
-Each of the following constants defines a tar archive format that the
-:mod:`tarfile` module is able to create. See section :ref:`tar-formats` for
-details.
-
-
-.. data:: USTAR_FORMAT
-
-   POSIX.1-1988 (ustar) format.
-
-
-.. data:: GNU_FORMAT
-
-   GNU tar format.
-
-
-.. data:: PAX_FORMAT
-
-   POSIX.1-2001 (pax) format.
-
-
-.. data:: DEFAULT_FORMAT
-
-   The default format for creating archives. This is currently :const:`GNU_FORMAT`.
-
-
-The following variables are available on module level:
-
+The following constants are available at the module level:
 
 .. data:: ENCODING
 
@@ -194,11 +168,40 @@ The following variables are available on
    :func:`sys.getfilesystemencoding` otherwise.
 
 
+Each of the following constants defines a tar archive format that the
+:mod:`tarfile` module is able to create. See section :ref:`tar-formats` for
+details.
+
+
+.. data:: USTAR_FORMAT
+
+   POSIX.1-1988 (ustar) format.
+
+
+.. data:: GNU_FORMAT
+
+   GNU tar format.
+
+
+.. data:: PAX_FORMAT
+
+   POSIX.1-2001 (pax) format.
+
+
+.. data:: DEFAULT_FORMAT
+
+   The default format for creating archives. This is currently :const:`GNU_FORMAT`.
+
+
 .. seealso::
 
    Module :mod:`zipfile`
       Documentation of the :mod:`zipfile` standard module.
 
+   :ref:`archiving-operations`
+      Documentation of the higer-level archiving facilities provided by the
+      standard :mod:`shutil` module.
+
    `GNU tar manual, Basic Tar Format <http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_node/Standard.html>`_
       Documentation for tar archive files, including GNU tar extensions.