diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2cf388d..d21aad4 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -93,6 +93,16 @@ Stairway is designed to provide atomic operations for one instance of one servic
 global or cross-service state. Therefore, it is up to the application or service to implement concurrency control on 
 its objects.
 
+### Context Awareness and Logs
+Stairway leverages the underlying logging system's mapped diagnostic context (MDC) if available.
+
+MDC manages contextual information on a per-thread basis: as Stairway submits a Flight for processing,
+it **passes along the MDC of the calling thread** so that context isn't lost.  It also further populates
+the MDC with **flight-specific context** for the duration of the flight's execution on the thread,
+and **step-specific context** for the duration of each step's execution.
+
+For more information on MDC, please see [Logback's MDC manual](https://logback.qos.ch/manual/mdc.html).
+
 # TODOs
 * Add a section on clusters, queuing, failure, and recovery
 * Add a section - perhaps in DEVELOPMENT.md describing the schema
diff --git a/stairway/src/main/java/bio/terra/stairway/impl/MdcHelper.java b/stairway/src/main/java/bio/terra/stairway/impl/MdcHelper.java
index bafcbb3..f3143a5 100644
--- a/stairway/src/main/java/bio/terra/stairway/impl/MdcHelper.java
+++ b/stairway/src/main/java/bio/terra/stairway/impl/MdcHelper.java
@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@
 import java.util.Optional;
 import org.slf4j.MDC;
 
+/**
+ * Utility methods to make Stairway flight runnables context-aware, using mapped diagnostic context (MDC).
+ */
 public class MdcHelper {
 
   /** ID of the flight */
@@ -34,8 +37,7 @@ public static Runnable withMdcAndFlightContext(
       // Any leftover context on the thread will be fully overwritten:
       MDC.setContextMap(Optional.ofNullable(contextMap).orElse(Map.of()));
       // If the calling thread's context contains flight and step context from a parent flight, this
-      // will
-      // be overwritten below:
+      // will be overwritten below:
       addFlightContextToMdc(flightContext);
       removeStepContextFromMdc(flightContext);
       try {
diff --git a/stairway/src/test/java/bio/terra/stairway/impl/MdcHelperTest.java b/stairway/src/test/java/bio/terra/stairway/impl/MdcHelperTest.java
index 4ec14a7..c017513 100644
--- a/stairway/src/test/java/bio/terra/stairway/impl/MdcHelperTest.java
+++ b/stairway/src/test/java/bio/terra/stairway/impl/MdcHelperTest.java
@@ -97,9 +97,8 @@ void withMdcAndFlightContext_subflight(Map<String, String> initialContext) {
               MDC.getCopyOfContextMap(),
               equalTo(expectedParentFlightMdc));
           // If a child flight is launched within a step in a parent flight, the calling thread's
-          // context would also
-          // contain step-specific context that should be cleared for logs emitted by the child
-          // flight.
+          // context would also contain step-specific context that should be cleared for logs
+          // emitted by the child flight.
           MdcHelper.addStepContextToMdc(flightContext);
           Runnable childFlight =
               () ->