diff --git a/docs/topics/class-based-views/generic-display.txt b/docs/topics/class-based-views/generic-display.txt
index fd3f3c78c9..4a3994f2a1 100644
--- a/docs/topics/class-based-views/generic-display.txt
+++ b/docs/topics/class-based-views/generic-display.txt
@@ -330,6 +330,13 @@ various useful things are stored on ``self``; as well as the request
 (``self.request``) this includes the positional (``self.args``) and name-based
 (``self.kwargs``) arguments captured according to the URLconf.
 
+These attributes are set up by the view's ``setup()`` method, which is called at 
+the beginning of the view processing. The ``setup()`` method sets:
+
+* ``self.request`` - The current request object
+* ``self.args`` - Positional arguments captured from the URL pattern
+* ``self.kwargs`` - Keyword arguments captured from the URL pattern
+
 Here, we have a URLconf with a single captured group::
 
     # urls.py