6 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 47, No. 5 Featured Article By Renee Clough, PLS, PE, AICP W hy do we include a narrative on our surveys? If you answered, “Because ORS 209.250(2) makes me,” then I’d say that you’re not wrong. I’d also argue though that you’re not right. The narrative is among the most important things on the map. When I write a narrative, I want everyone who comes after me to understand why I made the decisions I made. “Why” is the most important thing to convey in a narrative. What you did is nearly always evident on the map. Why you did it is often much less apparent, yet much more important, to a following surveyor. Last year, I surveyed a property that had a boundary in common with a recent filed survey. From the map it appeared he had established the common boundary by offsetting and extending a line between two found monuments. The narrative confirmed the geometry but didn’t explain why he chose to extend the line to approximately three times its length. In this case he was kind enough, and the project still fresh enough in his memory, to explain to me that he felt comfortable with the extension because it coordinated with another found monument near the end of the extension. Based on this additional understanding of his why, I accepted and held his location for the common boundary. Without that understanding, I doubt I would have felt comfortable accepting his solution. A Narrative About Narratives
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Nzc3ODM=