diff --git a/doc/source/user_guide/copy_on_write.rst b/doc/source/user_guide/copy_on_write.rst
index 9dbc46ca2db0e..fb0da70a0ea07 100644
--- a/doc/source/user_guide/copy_on_write.rst
+++ b/doc/source/user_guide/copy_on_write.rst
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ Previous behavior
 -----------------
 
 pandas indexing behavior is tricky to understand. Some operations return views while
-other return copies. Depending on the result of the operation, mutation one object
+other return copies. Depending on the result of the operation, mutating one object
 might accidentally mutate another:
 
 .. ipython:: python