diff --git a/python/mxnet/initializer.py b/python/mxnet/initializer.py
index 357e75b3bdf5..b67ab624ac70 100755
--- a/python/mxnet/initializer.py
+++ b/python/mxnet/initializer.py
@@ -32,10 +32,11 @@
 
 # inherit str for backward compatibility
 class InitDesc(str):
-    """Descriptor for the initialization pattern.
+    """
+    Descriptor for the initialization pattern.
 
-    Parameter
-    ---------
+    Parameters
+    ----------
     name : str
         Name of variable.
     attrs : dict of str to str
@@ -67,7 +68,7 @@ def set_verbosity(self, verbose=False, print_func=None):
         print_func : function
             A function that computes statistics of initialized arrays.
             Takes an `NDArray` and returns an `str`. Defaults to mean
-            absolute value str((|x|/size(x)).asscalar()).
+            absolute value str((abs(x)/size(x)).asscalar()).
         """
         self._verbose = verbose
         if print_func is None: