diff --git a/doc/source/user_guide/io.rst b/doc/source/user_guide/io.rst
index b23a0f10e9e2b..ee0b156027f5e 100644
--- a/doc/source/user_guide/io.rst
+++ b/doc/source/user_guide/io.rst
@@ -110,11 +110,14 @@ names : array-like, default ``None``
   List of column names to use. If file contains no header row, then you should
   explicitly pass ``header=None``. Duplicates in this list will cause
   a ``UserWarning`` to be issued.
-index_col :  int or sequence or ``False``, default ``None``
-  Column to use as the row labels of the ``DataFrame``. If a sequence is given, a
-  MultiIndex is used. If you have a malformed file with delimiters at the end of
-  each line, you might consider ``index_col=False`` to force pandas to *not* use
-  the first column as the index (row names).
+index_col : int, str, sequence of int / str, or False, default ``None``
+  Column(s) to use as the row labels of the ``DataFrame``, either given as
+  string name or column index. If a sequence of int / str is given, a
+  MultiIndex is used.
+
+  Note: ``index_col=False`` can be used to force pandas to *not* use the first
+  column as the index, e.g. when you have a malformed file with delimiters at
+  the end of each line.
 usecols : list-like or callable, default ``None``
   Return a subset of the columns. If list-like, all elements must either
   be positional (i.e. integer indices into the document columns) or strings
diff --git a/pandas/io/parsers.py b/pandas/io/parsers.py
index 4163a571df800..4e465f39aa3e5 100755
--- a/pandas/io/parsers.py
+++ b/pandas/io/parsers.py
@@ -102,11 +102,14 @@
     List of column names to use. If file contains no header row, then you
     should explicitly pass ``header=None``. Duplicates in this list will cause
     a ``UserWarning`` to be issued.
-index_col : int, sequence or bool, optional
-    Column to use as the row labels of the DataFrame. If a sequence is given, a
-    MultiIndex is used. If you have a malformed file with delimiters at the end
-    of each line, you might consider ``index_col=False`` to force pandas to
-    not use the first column as the index (row names).
+index_col : int, str, sequence of int / str, or False, default ``None``
+  Column(s) to use as the row labels of the ``DataFrame``, either given as
+  string name or column index. If a sequence of int / str is given, a
+  MultiIndex is used.
+
+  Note: ``index_col=False`` can be used to force pandas to *not* use the first
+  column as the index, e.g. when you have a malformed file with delimiters at
+  the end of each line.
 usecols : list-like or callable, optional
     Return a subset of the columns. If list-like, all elements must either
     be positional (i.e. integer indices into the document columns) or strings