Graphology (Γραφολογια)

What is handwriting and why we are using it?

Graphology is the analysis of the physical characteristics and patterns of handwriting claiming to be able to identify the writer, indicating psychological state at the time of writing, or evaluating personality characteristics. When there’s a suspect in a crime and the evidence includes a handwritten note, investigators may call in handwriting experts to see if there’s a match. In some cases, it might be the one piece of evidence that gets a suspect charged and eventually convicted.

Especially, in the world of forensic analysis, which includes crime scene investigation, DNA testing, fiber analysis, fingerprint analysis, voice identification and narcotics analysis, to name just a few of the disciplines, handwriting analysis fits into the area of questioned documents. Questioned document examiners (QDEs) analyze documents for signs of alteration, forgery and, when sample documents are available, handwriting or typing comparisons to determine or rule out authorship (and/or tie a document to a specific machine in the case of typing).

Handwriting movement analysis is actually the study and analysis of the movements involved in handwriting and drawing. It forms an important part of graphonomics, which became established after the “International Workshop on Handwriting Movement Analysis” in 1982 in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. It would become the first of a continuing series of International Graphonomics Conferences. The first graphonomics milestone was Thomassen, Keuss, Van Galen, Grootveld (1983). Handwriting is not considered only as a movement that leaves a visible trace of ink on paper (product) but it can also be considered as a movement (process).

A very tedious and methodical process that relies on extensive knowledge of the way people form letters, which characteristics of letter formation are unique and the physiological processes behind writing – the ways in which a person’s fine-motor skills can affect his or her handwriting and leave clues about the author’s identity.It is also an individual characteristic. This means that handwriting is unique for each person. Each person has their own style. Handwriting analysts say that people could have a few writing characteristics that are the same but the likelihood of having any more than that is impossible. The similarity in handwriting would be due to the style characteristics that we were taught when we were learning handwriting in school out of a book. Thus, handwriting is as unique as a fingerprint.

What we are looking for by examining the handwriting?

With the Handwriting analysis, we are looking for small differences between the writing of a sample where the writer is known and a writing sample where the writer is unknown. Instead of beginning to look for similarities in the handwriting a QDE begins to search for differences since it’s the differences that determine if the document is a forgery. A QDE is looking at three things: letter, line form and formatting. Content, such as grammar, spelling, phrasing and punctuation should also be looked at.

A problem that arises during handwriting analysis is a simulation, which is the attempt to disguise one’s handwriting or the attempt to copy another’s. Simulation (an attempt to disguise one’s handwriting or copy someone else’s) is a huge problem because it can make it much harder to make a determination about a questioned document or it can make it impossible. It can be possible to determine simulation though. The following factors are to be looked at:

• Shaky lines

• Dark and thick starts and finishes for words

• A lot of pen lifts

So the process of handwriting analysis when comparing two documents tarts not with checking for similarities, which any of us could do with a fair degree of accuracy, but instead with checking for differences. It’s the differences that initially determine if it’s possible that the same person wrote both pieces of text. If the­re are key differences in enough individual characteristics, and those differences do not appear to be the result of the simulation, then the two documents were not written by the same person. However, if the differences don’t rule out a match, and there are significant similarities in the individual traits in the two documents, singular authorship becomes a possibility.

Example

The handwriting examples below are from two different writers. Structural differences (1) can be seen from the letter formations by each writer. Connecting strokes to letters (2) and slant (3) are visible and differ from each writer’s distinctive style. In addition, baseline alignment (4) is considerably unique whereas one writer consistently writes on the baseline and the other repeatedly deviates below the baseline.