Air University Review, May-June 1985
The purpose of the officer evaluation system is to provide the Air Force with information on the performance and potential of officers for use in making personnel management decisions, such as promotions, assignments, augmentations, school selections, and separations. It is also intended to provide individual officers information on their performance and potential as viewed by their evaluators.
AFR 36-10, Officer Evaluations
25 October 1982
Officer effectiveness reports (OERS) perform vital functions. Not only do OERs complement our promotion and selection processes, but they serve the additional purposes of evaluation and feedback. OERs are important for what they say. How they say it is another matter and should have little impact on the officer being evaluated. I contend, however, that far too much emphasis is placed on the mechanical/administrative aspects of the OER: errorless typing, perfect capitalization and hyphenation, favored spellings, and artificial punctilios.
Certainly, OERs should be typed. It is difficult to identify a USAF organization that has responsibility for the preparation of OERs but does not have access to a typist. In those extremely rare cases where typing support is nonexistent, AFR 36-10, Officer Evaluations authorizes OERs to be printed or legibly written. The paragraph that authorizes printed or handwritten reports also provides guidance concerning the physical preparation of AF Form 707: "Reports containing an excessive number of erasures or any corrections to ratings must be reaccomplished," and "only corrections or erasures that change sentence meaning need be initialed by the evaluators." By any reasonable interpretation, these instructions are saying that it's okay to make typographical errors as long as they are corrected and there aren't too many of them. The regulation excludes any instructions that direct, or even suggest, that error-free evaluations are required or desired.
In spite of the guidelines of AFR 36-10, we have instituted policies that have placed us in a position of requiring nearly perfect OERS, at least regarding their physical preparation. To further complicate the process, we have begun worrying about such other problems as favored forms of spelling, capitalization of certain words, hyphenation, and other issues that have no bearing on the evaluation of the officer who is the subject of the report.
Clearly, there should be no misspelled words in an OER. Misspellings in sections I through VI suggest that the rater is not a good speller, did not read the report after it was typed, or only casually reviewed it before signing. Misspelled words also indicate that the additional rater, if there was one, and the indorser neglected to read the report carefully. However, although misspellings should be corrected, should we really be concerned about the difference between insure and ensure? As one OER mandate put it, use the word ensure rather than insure. insure is a variant of the word ensure. However, ensure is the stronger of the two words." Based on this guidance and interpretation, I wonder why Section VIII of AF Form 707 has not been changed from Indorser Comments to Endorser Comments? As it is typically found in OERS, I agree with us in gensure rather than insure, but should we really be concerned about such a minor point? Is it necessary to reaccomplish an entire report because of such a misspelling? I don't think so.
Capitalization should be in accordance with AFP 13-2, Guide for Air Force Writing. In certain instances, the use of lowercase letters where uppercase ones are required constitutes a glaring error. The beginning of a sentence and a person's name are but two examples. But when the writer or typist slips and capitalizes rank where it is not followed by the officer's name, or when the word commander, for example, is improperly capitalized, is it essential that the OER be rejected and sent back for reaccomplishment? To me, it makes little difference whether we write "lieutenant colonel" or "Lt Colonel," yet one critic wrote, a bit condescendingly, where is not now, nor has there been, a grade of Lt Colonel or L.TC. It's either lieutenant colonel or Lt Col." Granted, we should strive for perfection, but I contend that a reasonable application of the rules will not dilute tire significance of our reports.
Hyphenation is another recent OER issue. Current trends in Air Force writing suggest that few compound words be hyphenated. Thus "inter-service" has become "interservice," while "pre-establish" is now written "preestablish." unfortunately, this new style causes problems, such as "belllike" for "bell-like," anti-intellectual" for "anti-intellectual," and recollect" for "re-collect." A sub-issue (or is that "subissue"?) concerns the correct method for hyphenating a word at the end of a line where the typist has run out of space. The rules regarding this are clear. When we slip, however, and make a hyphenation error, should we feel compelled to retype the entire report? I think not.
A final criticism concerns artificial, usually unnecessary, punctilios. Is there really any justification for insisting that OERs be typed in ten pitch? Can there be a realistic reason for never allowing more than two lines in Section III? Does it make sense, at least good sense, to require that all the space in sections VI, VII, and VIII be filled? Is there a realistic reason for requiring an OER to be reaccomplished simply because all the letters in an exercise title were not capitalized? These and similar rules add little to the legitimate purposes of the OER.
IT SEEMS Clear to me that we should continue our emphasis on accurate and well-written OERS. They are vital to the individual officers and the systems they serve. For most of us, writing a good OER-A well-written report that fairly and accurately portrays the officer's performance and potential-is a difficult and time-consuming task. We need to continue to worry about the quality of our writing and the accuracy of the words. We should, however, reduce the scrutiny of our "checkers" and stop worrying about erasures, capitalizations, byphenations, and artificial rules. We must remember that officer effectiveness reports are written to serve, to be slaves. Let's not let them become slave drivers.
Fort Hood, Texas
Colonel Ross L. Meyer (B.S., Southern Methodist University; M.A., George Washington University) is Commander of Detachment 1, 602d Tactical Air control Wing, Fort Hood, Texas. Most of his career has been in fighter and trainer aircraft, and he has served as Commander and Professor of Aerospace Studies, AFROTC Detachment 115, University of Connecticut at Storrs. Colonel Meyer is a graduate of Squadron Officer School, Air command and Staff College, and Industrial college of the Armed Forces.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.