diff --git a/inbox/styling.xml b/inbox/styling.xml
index 9ee3367a..178bd9ff 100644
--- a/inbox/styling.xml
+++ b/inbox/styling.xml
@@ -161,19 +161,24 @@
       be located at the beginning of the line, or after a whitespace character.
       The opening styling directive MUST also not be followed by a whitespace
       character.
+      The closing styling directive MUST NOT be preceeded by a whitespace
+      character.
       Spans are always parsed from the beginning of the byte stream to the end
       and are lazily matched.
+      Characters that would be styling directives but do not follow these rules
+      are not considered when matching and thus may be present between two other
+      styling directives.
     </p>
     <p>
-      For example, the word "emphasized" would be styled in each of the
-      following messages:
+      For example, each of the following would be emphasized as indicated:
     </p>
     <ul>
       <li><strong>*emphasized*</strong></li>
       <li>foo <strong>*emphasized*</strong> bar</li>
-      <li><strong>*emphasized*</strong>foo<strong>*emphasized*</strong></li>
+      <li><strong>*emphasized*</strong> foo <strong>*emphasized*</strong></li>
       <li><strong>*emphasized*</strong>foo*</li>
       <li>* foo <strong>*emphasized*</strong></li>
+      <li><strong>*emphasized *foo*</strong></li>
     </ul>
     <p>
       Nothing would be styled in the following messages (where \n represents a
@@ -183,6 +188,7 @@
       <li>not emphasized*</li>
       <li>*not emphasized</li>
       <li>*not \n emphasized*</li>
+      <li>*foo *bar</li>
       <li>**</li>
       <li>****</li>
     </ul>