Forensics: Handwriting Analysis

History
Handwriting analysis was first used as a way to show personality. This was over 2000 years ago, when Aristotle noticed a correlation between handwriting and personality, meanwhile the Chinese also observed this correlation.This study was not more thoroughly developed until 1622 when an Italian physician and professor of philosophy published a book on this.Graphology continued to be studied as interest expanded throughout the world in WWII. This furthered into using graphology for psychological analysis, and then the application of typological theories.

Spacing

Twelve Characteristics of Handwriting

Line Quality

Line Quality - Are the lines flowy or shaky, and are the strokes are intense and short or light and free flowing?
Spacing of Words and Letters - Is the spacing consistent, are the letters and words close or far apart?
Ratio of the Relative Height, Width, and Size - Is the ratio of the sizes consistent, or different sizes?
Pen Lifts and Separations - Are there stops (lift of pen) between letters and words, or do they connect?
Connecting Strokes - Are there connecting lines between capital and lowercase letters, and are there connections between the letters?
Beginning and Ending Strokes - Are they straight or curled, long/short, and do they go up or down?
Unusual Letter Formation - Are there unusual letters (all capital e's, type of a's)
Shading or Pen Pressure - How is the pressure when writing (dark/light lines), pressure on upstroke or downstroke?
Slant - Left or right, up and down, and consistency?
Baseline Habits - Is the writing above, below, or centered on the line? Is it slanted across the line?
Flourishes and Embellishments - Are there any? (Hearts on i's, curls on letters)

Beginning and Ending Strokes

Diacritic Placement - The way t's are crossed, where letters are dotted (left, right, not at all)?

Slant

Indications of Forgery

Pen Lifts and Hesitation - This is gaps and overlapping of the strokes, and random pen stops in the middle of writing.
Blunt Starts and Stops - When writing abruptly stops at the end of a word and doesnt flow out.
Tremor - This occurs when the pen moves so slowly that a smooth line isnt formed.
Speed and Pressure - This occurs again when the pen is moved slowly, but it has to do with the the fact that the thickness of the line stays the same because the pressure on it is constant and doesnt change.
Patching - When there are obvious fixed errors in the forging, and the signature is obviously different.

Types of Forgery

Normal Hand Forgery - This is when there is no model, and no copying, and the writer just writes an individual's name.
Free Hand Forgery - This is when there is a model for the writing, the writer looks off someones true signature and copies it. These tend to have a slow drawn look, and the ratios of the letters will not be the same. Even when the forgery is detected, the person who committed the crime is almost never found.
Transmitted Light Tracing - This is when the real signature is put under the paper it is being traced onto, and held up to a light source and traced.
Carbon Intermediate Tracing - This is when the object the signature is traced onto is too thick to use light to trace the writing. Carbon paper is placed on the object where it is to be traced, and then the signature is traced over this, leaving a carbon imprint. This can then be retraced.

Transferred Forgery

Pressure Indented Image Tracing- This is when pen is used to trace something with heavy pressure over a paper, leaving an imprint. This is then traced, similar to the carbon tracing.
Transferred Forgery - This only works if the original signature is in pen. The forger will use ethylene glycol medium over the signature and use wax paper to lift the ink. The ink can then be put onto a different paper.

Handwriting Lab
In this lab we forged each others handwriting. Georgia forged mine, and I did hers. It was harder then you would think to copy someones handwriting because of the different pressure they use, and the direction of their lines.Georgia did an alright job, and I think I did alright too!

Famous Forgery Case

The Howard Hughes Hoax
In 1970 two authors, Clifford Irving and Richard Suskind created a plan to forge an autobiography of a billionaire Hoaward Hughes. This billionaire was reclusive, and they figured he would never come out of hiding to denounce the book. Irving told the publishing company McGraw-Hill that Hughes had asked him to write the book for him and that he agreed to continuously talk to Irving. For proof of this correspondence, Irving forged letters that he claimed to be from the billionaire, convincing McGraw-Hill to give him $765,000 for the rights to publish the book. When the book was announced to the public, Hughes surprisingly contacted reporters telling them it was false. He refused to appear in public, but voice tests were done confirming it was him over the telephone. Irving eventually confessed to the crime, and spent 17 months in prison. He later wrote a book, called The Hoax about the scheme.