diff --git a/doc/manual/src/design/overview.md b/doc/manual/src/design/overview.md
index 6a5555dff..c60121a01 100644
--- a/doc/manual/src/design/overview.md
+++ b/doc/manual/src/design/overview.md
@@ -5,18 +5,18 @@ Nix consists of layers that operate fairly independently.
 At the top is the *command line interface*, translating from invocations of Nix executables to interactions with the underlying layers.
 
 Below that is the *Nix language*, a [purely functional programming](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purely_functional_programming) language.
-It is used to compose  expressions which ultimately evaluate to *derivations* — self-contained *build plans* to derive new data from referenced input data.
+It is used to compose expressions which ultimately evaluate to self-contained *build plans*, used to derive *build results* from referenced *build inputs*.
 
 ::: {.note}
 The Nix language itself does not have a notion of *packages* or *configurations*.
-As far as we are concerned here, the result of a derivation is just data.
+As far as we are concerned here, the inputs and results of a derivation are just data.
 In practice this amounts to a set of files in a file system.
 :::
 
 The command line and Nix language are what users interact with most.
 
-Underlying everything is the *Nix store*, a mechanism to keep track of derivations, data, and references between them.
-It can also *realise derivations*, that is, *execute build instructions* to produce new data.
+Underlying everything is the *Nix store*, a mechanism to keep track of build plans, data, and references between them.
+It can also execute *build instructions* captured in the build plans, to produce new data.
 It uses the file system as a persistence layer, and a database to keep track of references.
 
 This chapter describes Nix starting at the bottom with the store layer, working its way up to the user-facing components described in the rest of the manual.