diff --git a/exporter/debugexporter/README.md b/exporter/debugexporter/README.md
index 32acc918f8b..18289592f50 100644
--- a/exporter/debugexporter/README.md
+++ b/exporter/debugexporter/README.md
@@ -25,9 +25,8 @@ See also the [Troubleshooting][troubleshooting_docs] document for examples on us
 
 The following settings are optional:
 
-- `verbosity` (default = `basic`): the verbosity of the debug exporter
-  (detailed|normal|basic). When set to `detailed`, pipeline data is verbosely
-  logged.
+- `verbosity` (default = `basic`): the verbosity of the debug exporter: `basic`, `normal` or `detailed`.
+  See [Verbosity levels](#verbosity-levels) below for more information.
 - `sampling_initial` (default = `2`): number of messages initially logged each
   second.
 - `sampling_thereafter` (default = `1`): sampling rate after the initial
@@ -53,6 +52,8 @@ exporters:
 The following subsections describe the output from the exporter depending on the configured verbosity level - `basic`, `normal` and `detailed`.
 The default verbosity level is `basic`.
 
+To understand how the below example output was generated, see [Generating example output](./generating-example-output.md).
+
 ### Basic verbosity
 
 With `verbosity: basic`, the exporter outputs a single-line summary of received data with a total count of telemetry records for every batch of received logs, metrics or traces.
diff --git a/exporter/debugexporter/generating-example-output.md b/exporter/debugexporter/generating-example-output.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..13b65b449da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/exporter/debugexporter/generating-example-output.md
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+# Generating example output
+
+This document describes how to generate the example output used in the [README](./README.md)'s [Verbosity levels](./README.md#verbosity-levels) section.
+
+1. Prepare the configuration of the Collector.
+
+   ```yaml
+   exporters:
+     debug/basic:
+       verbosity: basic
+     debug/normal:
+       verbosity: normal
+     debug/detailed:
+       verbosity: detailed
+
+   receivers:
+     otlp:
+       protocols:
+         grpc:
+
+   service:
+     pipelines:
+       traces:
+         exporters:
+           - debug/basic
+           - debug/normal
+           - debug/detailed
+         receivers:
+           - otlp
+   ```
+
+2. Run the Collector (download latest version from <https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases>).
+
+   ```console
+   otelcol --config config.yaml
+   ```
+
+3. Run the `telemetrygen` tool (install latest version with `go install github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/cmd/telemetrygen@latest`).
+
+   ```console
+   telemetrygen traces --otlp-insecure
+   ```