diff --git a/doc/combining.rst b/doc/combining.rst
index 358e582b529..5ea2a810901 100644
--- a/doc/combining.rst
+++ b/doc/combining.rst
@@ -208,5 +208,5 @@ coordinates as long as any non-missing values agree or are disjoint:
     xr.merge([ds1, ds2], compat='no_conflicts')
 
 Note that due to the underlying representation of missing values as floating
-point numbers (NaN) or generic objects (None), variable data type is not
+point numbers (``NaN``) or generic objects (``None``), variable data type is not
 always conserved when merging in this manner.