Top-of-Letter Handwriting Analysis

Each person’s style of handwriting is unique and can be identified, often even if a person is trying to disguise his or her handwriting. Try the following activity to see one way handwriting is analyzed.

Materials

- pen or sharp pencil
- sheet or 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 high points of each letter in each signature.
4. Use the ruler to join each mark to the one next to it, creating a zigzag line across the top of each signature.
5. Make a top-of-letter analysis by comparing the two zigzag lines. Are they similar?

More Fun Stuff to Do

Write your name on another sheet of paper. Have a helper forge (copy with the intent to deceive) your signature 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm) below your real signature. Make a top-of-the-letter analysis of the two signatures. How do they compare? Could this method of handwriting analysis prove that your helper’s signature was forged?

Explanation

An individual’s handwriting depends on several things, such as the brain, the eye, and the hand of the individual. It is affected by a person’s physical and emotional well-being, the position in which he or she is writing, and circumstances that might influence speed. Normally, a person’s handwriting will be slightly different from signature to signature. So, is a series of signatures on checks are exactly the same, it may indicate that someone forged the signatures by copying or tracing them. If the signatures are very different, however, this can also indicate that the signatures are fakes.

A signature in often all that is needed to withdraw money from a bank account, to write a check, or to make a purchase with a credit card. These are most common situations in which forgery, the act of falsifying documents, occurs. Every year, millions of dollars are lost to forgeries. Forgeries are found by comparing the signature in question with a known example of a person’s handwriting. For example, banks and credit card companies keep a file of copies of their customer’s signatures, and if they think that a check or credit slip might be a forgery, they will compare the signature in question with the signature in their files. If the signatures are different, they will call the police for a complete investigation. Forensic scientists will then do an even more thorough analysis of the signatures.