diff --git a/docs/advanced_topics/customisation/page_editing_interface.rst b/docs/advanced_topics/customisation/page_editing_interface.rst
index 51311d3c25..9e4161ce0e 100644
--- a/docs/advanced_topics/customisation/page_editing_interface.rst
+++ b/docs/advanced_topics/customisation/page_editing_interface.rst
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ As standard, Wagtail organises panels into three tabs: 'Content', 'Promote' and
             FieldPanel('body', classname="full"),
         ]
         sidebar_content_panels = [
-            SnippetChooserPanel('advert', Advert),
+            SnippetChooserPanel('advert'),
             InlinePanel('related_links', label="Related links"),
         ]
 
diff --git a/docs/reference/pages/editing_api.rst b/docs/reference/pages/editing_api.rst
index 8a04eb0850..987b4eb9fd 100644
--- a/docs/reference/pages/editing_api.rst
+++ b/docs/reference/pages/editing_api.rst
@@ -233,9 +233,13 @@ DocumentChooserPanel
 SnippetChooserPanel
 -------------------
 
-.. class:: wagtail.wagtailsnippets.edit_handlers.SnippetChooserPanel(field_name, model)
+.. versionchanged:: 1.1
 
-    Snippets are vanilla Django models you create yourself without a Wagtail-provided base class. So using them as a field in a page requires specifying your own ``appname.modelname``. A chooser, ``SnippetChooserPanel``, is provided which takes the field name and snippet class.
+    Before Wagtail 1.1, it was necessary to pass the snippet model class as a second parameter to ``SnippetChooserPanel``. This is now automatically picked up from the field.
+
+.. class:: wagtail.wagtailsnippets.edit_handlers.SnippetChooserPanel(field_name, snippet_type=None)
+
+    Snippets are vanilla Django models you create yourself without a Wagtail-provided base class. A chooser, ``SnippetChooserPanel``, is provided which takes the field name as an argument.
 
     .. code-block:: python
 
@@ -251,7 +255,7 @@ SnippetChooserPanel
           )
 
           content_panels = Page.content_panels + [
-              SnippetChooserPanel('advert', Advert),
+              SnippetChooserPanel('advert'),
           ]
 
     See :ref:`snippets` for more information.
diff --git a/docs/topics/snippets.rst b/docs/topics/snippets.rst
index f0c76c4510..8e4defe79a 100644
--- a/docs/topics/snippets.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/snippets.rst
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ In the above example, the list of adverts is a fixed list, displayed as part of
   
   
   BookPage.content_panels = [
-      SnippetChooserPanel('advert', Advert),
+      SnippetChooserPanel('advert'),
       # ...
   ]
 
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ To attach multiple adverts to a page, the ``SnippetChooserPanel`` can be placed
           verbose_name_plural = "Advert Placements"
   
       panels = [
-          SnippetChooserPanel('advert', Advert),
+          SnippetChooserPanel('advert'),
       ]
   
       def __str__(self):              # __unicode__ on Python 2