diff --git a/r/README.md b/r/README.md
index 8b6a050055..1f953a8e6f 100644
--- a/r/README.md
+++ b/r/README.md
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 
 The R `{arrow}` package provides access to many of the features of the [Apache Arrow C++ library](https://arrow.apache.org/docs/cpp/index.html) for R users. The goal of arrow is to provide an Arrow C++ backend to `{dplyr}`, and access to the Arrow C++ library through familiar base R and tidyverse functions, or `{R6}` classes.
 
-To learn more about the Apache Arrow project, see the parent documentation of the [Arrow Project](https://arrow.apache.org/). The Arrow project provides functionality for a wide range of data analysis tasks to store, process and move data fast. See the [read/write article](articles/read_write.html) to learn about reading and writing data files, [data wrangling](article/data_wrangling.html) to learn how to use dplyr syntax with arrow objects, and the [function documentation](reference/acero.html) for a full list of supported functions within dplyr queries.
+To learn more about the Apache Arrow project, see the parent documentation of the [Arrow Project](https://arrow.apache.org/). The Arrow project provides functionality for a wide range of data analysis tasks to store, process and move data fast. See the [read/write article](articles/read_write.html) to learn about reading and writing data files, [data wrangling](articles/data_wrangling.html) to learn how to use dplyr syntax with arrow objects, and the [function documentation](reference/acero.html) for a full list of supported functions within dplyr queries.
 
 ## Installation
 
@@ -65,6 +65,18 @@ Additional features include:
 - Fine control over column types to work seamlessly with databases and data warehouses
 - Toolkit for building connectors to other applications and services that use Arrow
 
+## What is Apache Arrow?
+
+Apache Arrow is a cross-language development platform for in-memory and
+larger-than-memory data. It specifies a standardized language-independent
+columnar memory format for flat and hierarchical data, organized for efficient
+analytic operations on modern hardware. It also provides computational libraries
+and zero-copy streaming, messaging, and interprocess communication.
+
+This package exposes an interface to the Arrow C++ library, enabling access to
+many of its features in R. It provides low-level access to the Arrow C++ library
+API and higher-level access through a dplyr backend and familiar R functions.
+
 ## Arrow resources
 
 There are a few additional resources that you may find useful for getting started with arrow:
@@ -85,7 +97,10 @@ the [Apache Arrow Community](https://arrow.apache.org/community/) page.
 If you encounter a bug, please file an issue with a minimal reproducible
 example on [GitHub issues](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues).
 Log in to your GitHub account, click on **New issue** and select the type of
-@@ -104,11 +92,8 @@ features\*\* section of the [Contributing to Apache
+issue you want to create. Add a meaningful title prefixed with **`[R]`**
+followed by a space, the issue summary and select component **R** from the
+dropdown list. For more information, see the **Report bugs and propose
+features** section of the [Contributing to Apache
 Arrow](https://arrow.apache.org/docs/developers/#contributing) page
 in the Arrow developer documentation.