Spacing Analysis

Experts also compare the spacing between words and letters to analyze and identfying handwriting. Try a spacing analysis to see how this technique is done.

Materials

- pen or sharp pencil
- sheet of white paper
- sheet of tracing paper
- ruler

Procedure

1. Write your name two times on the sheet of white paper.
2. Place the tracing paper over your signature.
3. Make a small mark on the tracing paper at all of the low points of the beginning and ending of each letter in each signature.
4. Use the ruler to join the righmost mark of each letter to the leftmost mark of the next letter for each signature, creating a series of short lines between the letters.
5. Compare the two sets of lines. Are they similar?

More Fun Stuuf to Do

Write your name on another sheet of paper. Have a helper forge your signature below your real signature. Make a spacing analysis. How do the two signatures compare? Could this methode of handwriting analysis prove that your helper’s signature was forged?