Handwriting Analysis

1.History of Handwriting
http://www.britishgraphology.org/history.htm
At the beginning of the 19th century Edouard Hocquart and Abbé Flandrin developed the art of interpreting handwriting. However, it was not until the second half of the century, when Michon published the results of his many years of research into individual handwriting movements, which gained public interest. His theory gained popularity simply for its simplicity. He studied individual strokes and how they relate to the persons personality.
2. Inaccuracy in Handwriting Analysis: Why do forensic investigators have trouble using handwriting analysis techniques?
Forensic investigators have trouble using handwriting analysis techniques because people can disguise their handwriting and handwriting does not always correlate to the persons personality.
3. Techniques or Indicators scientists use to identify handwriting or forgeries: What do forensic scientist look for when analyzing handwriting?
Scientists look for things such as slants, curls, and the hieght of the lettering to analyze a suspect's handwriting. Also, they look for the spacing between the letters so that they can identify whose handwriting it is. These are specific to each persons personality and handwriting.
4. Pictures and analysis of your in-class handwriting forgery practice: Categorize and analyze (comment) your in-class handwriting work.

In class, we all made out a check with the same name signed. We then ripped up the check. We handed it to someone else in the class and they reassembled it. Once they reassmebled it, they tried to figure out whose handwriting it was by comparing it to the samples we had written earlier that week. They had to look for similarities such as slant and how far we spaced out our letters.Once we thought we had the right person, we compared. Most of us got it right but a few of them were wrong. This could be due to similar handwriting in the class or a lack of observation by the person who matched the checks up. This was a good excercise because not only were they analyzing our words, but also our numbers.