diff --git a/src/site/xdoc/changes.xml b/src/site/xdoc/changes.xml
index 029bb5df5..2f4ae8ef4 100644
--- a/src/site/xdoc/changes.xml
+++ b/src/site/xdoc/changes.xml
@@ -28,6 +28,13 @@ release process easy :-).
 3.  Use the report generated by the maven-changelog-plugin to see all
 SVN commits. TBA how to use this with SVN.
 
+To generate the release notes from this file:
+
+mvn changes:announcement-generate
+mv target/announcement/math-release-notes.vm RELEASE_NOTES.txt
+then tweak the formatting 
+(e.g. copy/paste the description to replace the one-line version)
+and commit
 
 The <action> type attribute can be add,update,fix,remove.
 -->
@@ -37,19 +44,26 @@ The <action> type attribute can be add,update,fix,remove.
     <title>Commons Math Release Notes</title>
   </properties>
   <body>
-    <release version="2.1" date="TBD" description="This is primarily a maintenance release, but
-       it also includes new features and enhancements.  Users of version 2.0 are encouraged to
-       upgrade to 2.1, as this release includes some important bug fixes.  See the detailed list
-       of changes below for full description of all bug fixes and enhancements.
-       This release contains some minor API compatibility breaks with version 2.0:
-       the return type of RealVector.copy() has been changed to AbstractRealVector; the no-argument
-       constructor of MatrixUtils() has been made private; the mapXxxToSelf methods of OpenMapRealVector
-       have been removed and some method return types have been changed in this class; new methods
-       have been added to the RealVector interface; several fields in AdaptiveStepSizeIntegrator have
-       been made final; DummyStepInterpolator requires an additional argument for one of its constructors; some
-       protected fields have been removed from AbstractLeastSquaresOptimizer, AbstractScalarDifferentiableOptimizer
-       and AbstractLinearOptimizer; and the isOptimal(SimplexTableau) method has been removed from
-       SimplexSolver. ">
+    <!-- The description is formatted so as to make it easy to paste into the generated release notes -->
+    <release version="2.1" date="TBD" description="
+This is primarily a maintenance release, but it also includes new features and enhancements.
+
+Users of version 2.0 are encouraged to upgrade to 2.1, as this release includes some important bug fixes.
+
+See the detailed list of changes below for full description of all bug fixes and enhancements.
+
+This release contains some minor API compatibility breaks with version 2.0:
+
+ the return type of RealVector.copy() has been changed to AbstractRealVector;
+ the no-argument constructor of MatrixUtils() has been made private;
+ the mapXxxToSelf methods of OpenMapRealVector have been removed and
+     some method return types have been changed in this class;
+ new methods have been added to the RealVector interface;
+ several fields in AdaptiveStepSizeIntegrator have been made final;
+ DummyStepInterpolator requires an additional argument for one of its constructors;
+ some protected fields have been removed from AbstractLeastSquaresOptimizer, 
+     AbstractScalarDifferentiableOptimizer and AbstractLinearOptimizer;
+ and the isOptimal(SimplexTableau) method has been removed from SimplexSolver. ">
       <action dev="erans" type="update" issue="MATH-356">
         Added method to clear the list of observations in CurveFitter.
       </action>
