diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
index a1aad13384..af9fb356ca 100644
--- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -153,6 +153,12 @@ The "Copy commit summary" command of gitk can be used to obtain this
 format (with the subject enclosed in a pair of double-quotes), or this
 invocation of `git show`:
 
+....
+	git show -s --pretty=reference <commit>
+....
+
+or, on an older version of Git without support for --pretty=reference:
+
 ....
 	git show -s --date=short --pretty='format:%h (%s, %ad)' <commit>
 ....