diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 7f22289..eee644d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ A derived class must either:
 - have a member data matching the name of each argument to `__init__`
 - provide a user-defined `to_dict()` method which returns a dictionary whose keys match the arguments to `__init__`
 
-If you change the keyword arguments to a class which derives from `Serializable` but would like to be able to deserialize older JSON representations then you can define a class-level dictionary called `_KEYWORD_ALIASES` which maps old keywords to new names (or `None` if a keyword was removed).
+If you change the keyword arguments to a class which derives from `Serializable` but would like to be able to deserialize older JSON representations then you can define a class-level dictionary called `_SERIALIZABLE_KEYWORD_ALIASES` which maps old keywords to new names (or `None` if a keyword was removed).
 
 ## `DataclassSerializable` for `@dataclass` subclasses
 
@@ -42,6 +42,6 @@ The on-wire JSON format is identical to `Serializable`, so mixed codebases inter
 
 ## Limitations
 
-- Serializable objects must inherit from `Serializable`, be tuples or namedtuples, be serializble primitive types such as dict, list, int, float, or str.
+- Serializable objects must inherit from `Serializable`, be tuples or namedtuples, be serializable primitive types such as dict, list, int, float, or str.
 
 - The serialized representation of objects relies on reserved keywords (such as `"__name__"`, and `"__class__"`), so dictionaries are expected to not contain any keys which begin with two underscores.
diff --git a/serializable/helpers.py b/serializable/helpers.py
index 289185c..2d0939a 100644
--- a/serializable/helpers.py
+++ b/serializable/helpers.py
@@ -228,8 +228,8 @@ def list_to_serializable_repr(x):
 
 def to_dict(obj):
     """
-    If value wasn't isn't a primitive scalar or collection then it needs to
-    either implement to_dict (instances of Serializable) or has member
+    If value isn't a primitive scalar or collection then it needs to
+    either implement to_dict (instances of Serializable) or have member
     data matching each required arg of __init__.
     """
     if isinstance(obj, dict):
diff --git a/serializable/serializable.py b/serializable/serializable.py
index e961e21..aa901fc 100644
--- a/serializable/serializable.py
+++ b/serializable/serializable.py
@@ -24,12 +24,10 @@
 
 class Serializable:
     """
-    Base class for all PyEnsembl objects which provides default
-    methods such as to_json, from_json, __reduce__, and from_dict
+    Base class which provides default methods such as to_json, from_json,
+    __reduce__, and from_dict.
 
-    Relies on the following condition:
-         (1) a user-defined to_dict method
-         (2) the keys of to_dict() must match the arguments to __init__
+    Relies on the keys of to_dict() matching the arguments to __init__.
     """
 
     def __str__(self):
@@ -78,7 +76,7 @@ def _update_kwargs(cls, kwargs):
         Rename any old keyword arguments to preserve backwards compatibility
         """
         # check every class in the inheritance chain for its own
-        # definition of _KEYWORD_ALIASES
+        # definition of _SERIALIZABLE_KEYWORD_ALIASES
         for klass in cls.mro():
             keyword_rename_dict = getattr(klass, "_SERIALIZABLE_KEYWORD_ALIASES", {})
             for old_name, new_name in keyword_rename_dict.items():
@@ -99,7 +97,7 @@ def from_dict(cls, state_dict):
 
     def to_json(self):
         """
-        Returns a string containing a JSON representation of this Genome.
+        Returns a string containing a JSON representation of this object.
         """
         return to_json(self)
 
@@ -112,8 +110,8 @@ def from_json(cls, json_string):
 
     def write_json_file(self, path):
         """
-        Serialize this VariantCollection to a JSON representation and write it
-        out to a text file.
+        Serialize this object to a JSON representation and write it out to a
+        text file.
         """
         with open(path, "w") as f:
             f.write(self.to_json())
@@ -121,7 +119,7 @@ def write_json_file(self, path):
     @classmethod
     def read_json_file(cls, path):
         """
-        Construct a VariantCollection from a JSON file.
+        Construct an instance from a JSON file.
         """
         with open(path) as f:
             json_string = f.read()
@@ -132,8 +130,4 @@ def __reduce__(self):
         Overriding this method directs the default pickler to reconstruct
         this object using our from_dict method.
         """
-
-        # I wish I could just return (self.from_dict, (self.to_dict(),) but
-        # Python 2 won't pickle the class method from_dict so instead have to
-        # use globally defined functions.
         return (from_serializable_repr, (to_serializable_repr(self),))
diff --git a/serializable/version.py b/serializable/version.py
index 7c0f2bf..4b8e122 100644
--- a/serializable/version.py
+++ b/serializable/version.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-__version__ = "1.1.0"
+__version__ = "1.1.1"
 
 
 def print_version():