diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 5f6115e1c3a22..b28f8866b157d 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ likelihood of your contribution being merged.**
 How to contribute
 -----------------
 
-The preferred workflow for contributing to scikit-learn is to fork the 
+The preferred workflow for contributing to scikit-learn is to fork the
 [main repository](https://github.com/scikit-learn/scikit-learn) on
 GitHub, clone, and develop on a branch. Steps:
 
@@ -26,13 +26,13 @@ GitHub, clone, and develop on a branch. Steps:
    $ git clone git@github.com:YourLogin/scikit-learn.git
    $ cd scikit-learn
    ```
-   
+
 3. Create a ``feature`` branch to hold your development changes:
 
    ```bash
    $ git checkout -b my-feature
    ```
-   
+
    Always use a ``feature`` branch. It's good practice to never work on the ``master`` branch!
 
 4. Develop the feature on your feature branch. Add changed files using ``git add`` and then ``git commit`` files:
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ GitHub, clone, and develop on a branch. Steps:
 Click the 'Pull request' button to send your changes to the project's maintainers for
 review. This will send an email to the committers.
 
-(If any of the above seems like magic to you, please look up the 
+(If any of the above seems like magic to you, please look up the
 [Git documentation](https://git-scm.com/documentation) on the web, or ask a friend or another contributor for help.)
 
 Pull Request Checklist
@@ -179,7 +179,7 @@ following rules before submitting:
   import scipy; print("SciPy", scipy.__version__)
   import sklearn; print("Scikit-Learn", sklearn.__version__)
   ```
-   
+
 -  Please be specific about what estimators and/or functions are involved
    and the shape of the data, as appropriate; please include a
    [reproducible](http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve) code snippet
@@ -228,5 +228,5 @@ Further Information
 -------------------
 
 Visit the [Contributing Code](http://scikit-learn.org/stable/developers/index.html#coding-guidelines)
-section of the website for more information including conforming to the 
+section of the website for more information including conforming to the
 API spec and profiling contributed code.
diff --git a/doc/developers/contributing.rst b/doc/developers/contributing.rst
index 7c6c7e12a7956..d97afefac5b0b 100644
--- a/doc/developers/contributing.rst
+++ b/doc/developers/contributing.rst
@@ -263,6 +263,24 @@ and Cython optimizations.
    <http://astropy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/development/workflow/development_workflow.html>`_
    sections.
 
+.. topic:: Continuous Integration (CI)
+
+   * Travis is used for testing on Linux platforms
+   * Appveyor is used for testing on Windows platforms
+   * CircleCI is used to build the docs for viewing
+
+   Please note that if one of the following markers appear in the latest commit
+   message, the following actions are taken.
+
+     ====================== ===================
+     Commit Message Marker  Action Taken by CI
+     ---------------------- -------------------
+     [ci skip]              CI is skipped completely
+     [doc skip]             Docs are not built
+     [doc quick]            Docs built, but excludes example gallery plots
+     [doc build]            Docs built including example gallery plots
+     ====================== ===================
+
 .. _filing_bugs:
 
 Filing Bugs
@@ -309,10 +327,10 @@ following rules before submitting:
 Issues for New Contributors
 ---------------------------
 
-New contributors should look for the following tags when looking for issues. 
-We strongly recommend that new contributors tackle "easy" issues first: this 
-helps the contributor become familiar with the contribution workflow, and 
-for the core devs to become acquainted with the contributor; besides which, 
+New contributors should look for the following tags when looking for issues.
+We strongly recommend that new contributors tackle "easy" issues first: this
+helps the contributor become familiar with the contribution workflow, and
+for the core devs to become acquainted with the contributor; besides which,
 we frequently underestimate how easy an issue is to solve!
 
 .. topic:: Easy Tags
@@ -327,7 +345,7 @@ we frequently underestimate how easy an issue is to solve!
 
 .. topic:: Need Contributor Tags
 
-    We often use the Need Contributor tag to mark issues regardless of difficulty. Additionally, 
+    We often use the Need Contributor tag to mark issues regardless of difficulty. Additionally,
     we use the Need Contributor tag to mark Pull Requests which have been abandoned
     by their original contributor and are available for someone to pick up where the original
     contributor left off. The list of issues with the Need Contributor tag can be found
@@ -488,8 +506,8 @@ There are three other tags to help new contributors:
     but is still approachable for someone new to the project.
 
 :Needs Contributor:
-    This tag marks an issue which currently lacks a contributor or a 
-    PR that needs another contributor to take over the work. These 
+    This tag marks an issue which currently lacks a contributor or a
+    PR that needs another contributor to take over the work. These
     issues can range in difficulty, and may not be approachable
     for new contributors. Note that not all issues which need
     contributors will have this tag.