diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,3 +1,25 @@
 # seep
 
-print stdin to terminal, then pipe into next process
+Print `stdin` to terminal, then pipe into next process.
+
+`seep` (short for see pipe) has the purpose of letting you peek at what you're
+piping.
+
+## Usage
+
+On Unix like systems, you can pass the output (`stdout`) of one process to the
+other as input, like this: `echo "foo" | hexdump`. In some cases, the output of
+the first command might contain information that a user might want to look at.
+
+When the second process does not show the information it received, the user
+cannot *see* the information produced by the first program. This is where `seep`
+comes useful:
+
+To look at the output of process one, we pipe it to `seep` and then pipe the
+output of `seep` to process two. `seep` will show us what information it
+receives and pass it over to process two:
+
+```bash
+ls | seep | grep src
+```
+(list files and dirs, show all with `seep`, show only containing "src")