diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 139c9a4576..34789be8e2 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -26,10 +26,10 @@ contributors, the general procedure for contributing has been established:
    [find](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/issues) an issue you'd like to help with
 2. Participate in thoughtful discussion on that issue
 3. If you would like to contribute:
-   1. If a the issue is a proposal, ensure that the proposal has been accepted
-   2. Ensure that nobody else has already begun working on this issue, if they have
+   1. If the issue is a proposal, ensure that the proposal has been accepted
+   2. Ensure that nobody else has already begun working on this issue. If they have,
       make sure to contact them to collaborate
-   3. If nobody has been assigned the issue and you would like to work on it
+   3. If nobody has been assigned for the issue and you would like to work on it,
       make a comment on the issue to inform the community of your intentions
       to begin work
    4. Follow standard Github best practices: fork the repo, branch from the
@@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ To pull in updates from the origin repo, run
 - `git fetch upstream`
 - `git rebase upstream/master` (or whatever branch you want)
 
-Please don't make Pull Requests to `master`.
+Please don't make Pull Requests from `master`.
 
 ## Dependencies
 
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ We use [Go 1.11 Modules](https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Modules) to manage
 dependency versions.
 
 The master branch of every Cosmos repository should just build with `go get`,
-which means they should be kept up-to-date with their dependencies so we can
+which means they should be kept up-to-date with their dependencies, so we can
 get away with telling people they can just `go get` our software.
 
 Since some dependencies are not under our control, a third party may break our