Look at the coordinate description. Township is given first and range second. The capital "T" indicates township. Immediately after the "T" is a number, followed by either "N" for north or "S" for south. "R" indicates range, then its number and "E" for east or "W" for west." For example, read T11N, R16W as "Township 11 North, Range 16 West."
Read more complex descriptions by inserting the words "of the" between each part that comes before the section and "in" right after the section number. (A section is a square mile; it has 640 acres.) For example, E1/2NE1/4SW1/4Section 28, T11N, R16W describes "East half of the northeast quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 28 in Township 11 North, Range 16 West."
Locate a parcel by reading its description from right to left. First locate the range. Ranges are numbered from right to left across the top of the map. Then look for the township. These are numbered from bottom to top at the left side of the map. Your parcel lies within the 36-section square bounded by these two coordinates.
Find the quarter of the specified section. In the example, this quarter-section is the lower left quadrant. It measures half a mile on each side and contains approximately 160 acres.
Divide the quarter into fourths. In this example, mark the northeast quarter. This parcel, the upper right quadrant of the parcel you just found, measures 1/4-mile on each side and contains 40 acres.
Divide the 40-acre parcel into two equal parts, east and west. Your description says "E1/2," so you choose the half on the right. You now have located on the map the parcel described as "E1/2NE1/4SW1/4 Section 28, T11N, R16W" -- a rectangular 20-acre parcel whose north and south sides each measure 1/8-mile, or 660 feet, and east and west sides measure 1/4-mile, or 1,320 feet.