diff --git a/examples/COUPLE/lammps_spparks/README b/examples/COUPLE/lammps_spparks/README
index 239a8042e3..fc31de5f0b 100644
--- a/examples/COUPLE/lammps_spparks/README
+++ b/examples/COUPLE/lammps_spparks/README
@@ -1,17 +1,20 @@
 This directory has an application that models grain growth in the
-presence of strain.  The grain growth is simulated by a Potts model in
-a kinetic Monte Carlo code SPPARKS.  Clusters of like spins on a
-lattice represent grains.  The Hamiltonian for the energy due of a
-collection of spins includes a strain term and is described on this
-page in the SPPARKS documentation:
+presence of strain.
 
-http://www.sandia.gov/~sjplimp/spparks/doc/app_potts_strain.html.
+The grain growth is simulated by a Potts model in a kinetic Monte
+Carlo code SPPARKS.  Clusters of like spins on a lattice represent
+grains.  The Hamiltonian for the energy due of a collection of spins
+includes a strain term and is described on this page in the SPPARKS
+documentation:
 
-The strain is computed by LAMMPS as a particle displacement where
-pairs of atoms across a grain boundary are of different types and thus
-push off from each other due to a Lennard-Jones sigma between
-particles of different types that is larger than the sigma between
-particles of the same type (interior to grains).
+http://spparks.sandia.gov/doc/app_potts_strain.html.
+
+The strain is computed by the molecular dynamics code LAMMPS as a
+particle displacement where pairs of atoms across a grain boundary are
+of different types and thus push off from each other due to a
+Lennard-Jones sigma between particles of different types that is
+larger than the sigma between particles of the same type (interior to
+grains).
 
 lmpspk.cpp	    main program
 		    it links LAMMPS and SPPARKS as libraries
diff --git a/python/README b/python/README
index 27997582b5..0376fd69ec 100644
--- a/python/README
+++ b/python/README
@@ -91,7 +91,10 @@ viz_tool.py in.viz 100 5000
 vizplotgui_tool.py in.viz 100 thermo_temp
 
 You can un-comment the Pypar calls if you want to run these in
-parallel.
+parallel.  Then, for example, you can type:
+
+% mpirun -np 4 trivial.py in.trivial
+% mpirun -np 4 python trivial.py in.trivial
 
 Each script has more documentation in the file that explains how to
 use it and what it is doing.
diff --git a/python/lammps.py b/python/lammps.py
index c65e84ced0..0f6e9dc76b 100644
--- a/python/lammps.py
+++ b/python/lammps.py
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ class lammps:
     if type == 0:
       if style > 0: return None
       self.lib.lammps_extract_fix.restype = POINTER(c_double)
-      ptr = self.lib.lammps_extract_bix(self.lmp,id,style,type,i,j)
+      ptr = self.lib.lammps_extract_fix(self.lmp,id,style,type,i,j)
       result = ptr[0]
       self.lib.lammps_free(ptr)
       return result
diff --git a/src/USER-PHONON/README b/src/USER-PHONON/README
index 67675d31a9..a3cd47fcd7 100644
--- a/src/USER-PHONON/README
+++ b/src/USER-PHONON/README
@@ -1,18 +1,19 @@
-This package contains a method to measure the dynamical matrices, and
-consequently the phonon dispersion, directly from molecular dynamics
-simulations.  It is implemented as a fix phonon command.
+This package contains a fix phonon command that calculates dynamical
+matrices, which can then be used to compute phonon dispersion
+relations, directly from molecular dynamics simulations.
 
 See the doc page for the fix phonon command for detailed usage
 instructions.
 
-The compiling of this package along with LAMMPS requires that the FFT3d
-wrappers from the kspace package of LAMMPS be included as well.
+Use of this package requires building LAMMPS with FFT suppport, as
+described in doc/Section_start.html.
 
 There are example scripts for using this package in
 examples/USER/phonon.
 
-There is an auxiliary post-processing tool for using this package in
-tools/phonon.
+There is an auxiliary post-processing tool in tools/phonon that will
+compute phonon frequencies and dispersion relations from the dynamical
+matrices output by this command.
 
 The person who created this package is Ling-Ti Kong (konglt at
 sjtu.edu.cn) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.  Contact him directly
diff --git a/tools/phonon/README b/tools/phonon/README
index 042cc13c7d..f0647a6ff2 100644
--- a/tools/phonon/README
+++ b/tools/phonon/README
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
-Phonon post-processing tool
+Phonon dispersion post-processing tool
 
-This program reads the binary file created by fix_phonon
-and helps to analyse the phonon related info.
+This program reads the binary file created by fix_phonon and helps to
+analyse the phonon related info.
 
 The clapack library is needed to solve the eigen problems,
 which could be downloaded from:
@@ -19,13 +19,9 @@ Brillouin zone.
 To compile the code, one needs therefore to install the above
 libraries and set the paths correctly in the Makefile.
 
-The units of the output frequencies by this code is THz for
-LAMMPS units "real", "si", "metal", and "cgs"; in these cases,
-the frequencies are $\nu$ instead of $\omega$.
-
-One is encouraged to visit http://code.google.com/p/fix-phonon/
-to check out the latest revision on fix-phonon and the post-processing
-code.
+The units of the output frequencies by this code is THz for LAMMPS
+units "real", "si", "metal", and "cgs"; in these cases, the
+frequencies are $\nu$ instead of $\omega$.
 
 Author: Ling-Ti Kong
 Feb 2013