diff -r cce04851d2e2 Doc/library/functions.rst
--- a/Doc/library/functions.rst	Thu Jun 02 15:15:12 2016 -0400
+++ b/Doc/library/functions.rst	Thu Jun 02 16:41:02 2016 -0700
@@ -1449,8 +1449,9 @@
    class name and becomes the :attr:`~class.__name__` attribute; the *bases*
    tuple itemizes the base classes and becomes the :attr:`~class.__bases__`
    attribute; and the *dict* dictionary is the namespace containing definitions
-   for class body and becomes the :attr:`~object.__dict__` attribute.  For
-   example, the following two statements create identical :class:`type` objects:
+   for class body and is copied to a standard dictionary to become the
+   :attr:`~object.__dict__` attribute.  For example, the following two
+   statements create identical :class:`type` objects:
 
       >>> class X:
       ...     a = 1
diff -r cce04851d2e2 Doc/reference/datamodel.rst
--- a/Doc/reference/datamodel.rst	Thu Jun 02 15:15:12 2016 -0400
+++ b/Doc/reference/datamodel.rst	Thu Jun 02 16:41:02 2016 -0700
@@ -1735,6 +1735,11 @@
 included in the class definition (if any) and the resulting object is bound
 in the local namespace as the defined class.
 
+When a new class is created by ``type.__new__``, the object provided as the
+namespace parameter is copied to a standard Python dictionary and the original
+object is discarded. The new copy becomes the :attr:`~object.__dict__` attribute
+of the class object.
+
 .. seealso::
 
    :pep:`3135` - New super