diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/sparse.rst b/Documentation/dev-tools/sparse.rst
index 78aa00a604a0090713615ff0dfad8c04ab60dc44..ffdcc97f6f5af218e96a6cbf5cce1e7c4cc071f4 100644
--- a/Documentation/dev-tools/sparse.rst
+++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/sparse.rst
@@ -103,3 +103,9 @@ have already built it.
 
 The optional make variable CF can be used to pass arguments to sparse.  The
 build system passes -Wbitwise to sparse automatically.
+
+Checking RCU annotations
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+RCU annotations are not checked by default.  To enable RCU annotation
+checks, include -DCONFIG_SPARSE_RCU_POINTER in your CF flags.