Construction Document Note Writing

Contract documents use notes on drawings to clarify and instruct work to be done. When notes are clear and consistent, accurate bids can be collected and construction runs smoother than if notes were unclear. Unclear notes lead to more requests for information (RFIs), more effort during a project's construction administration (CA) phase, and potentially unintended end-products, which can lead to legal action.

Here are some concepts to help write clear, concise, and consistent notes.

• Notes are to the contractor. Do not write "the contractor shall" in the notes. It's already implied. It's like if an author wrote "the reader shall" in a book. Doing so makes the writing clunky.

• Notes are instructional. Write notes that command an action.

• Write with an active voice. Avoid passive voice.

• Write in the present tense. Notes are instructions that are being followed in the present; they are not instructions for the past.

• Denote existing items as existing; do not denote new items as new. Existing items need to be denoted in one way or another so it's clear that they are presently installed and they remain, get relocated, or get demolished. New items need to have information on their scope, i.e. are they being furnished, installed, or both (provide). This language needs to be consistent with what is defined in the contract documents. 

• Be consistent with the project specifications. Wording on the drawings needs to match wording used in specifications to align the two sets as one set of contract documents. 

• Do not reference the project specifications. Drawings and specifications both make up the contract documents set. Products should generally be shown on drawings and specified in the specifications. They work together as one so there is no need to continuously reference between the two.

• Do not duplicate information. Duplicating information increases the likelihood that they can conflict with each other if something changes and only one place gets updated. The design team is at fault if there is a discrepancy with duplicate information. Optimal contract documents are lean, consisting of only the necessary information for contractors to bid and build from.

• Do not denote scopes of work. That's the General Contractor's (GC) or Construction Manager's (CM) job. Writing scopes of work (e.g. "the mechanical contractor shall..") places additional risk on the design team and potentially conflicts with scopes of work that the GC or CM writes up. Instead, use divisions, referring to divisions of specifications (e.g. "furnished under Division 28").