Document Examination, Handwriting Analysis, Forensic Document Services

A. No, forensic document examination does not develop information about personality. There is a separate field of study called "Graphology" which deals with personality and handwriting.

Q. Can right or left handedness be detected by examining handwriting?

A. Contrary to popular belief, there are three things that can not be reliably ascertained by examining handwriting. One of those is the "handedness" of the writer. The other two things are the author's gender and age.

Q. Can you compare printed writing to cursive writing?

A. Rarely. Some writers style of writing is a mix of cursive and printed forms, thereby allowing the examiner to carry out some level of examination on either cursive or printed writing. There are also many factors other than letter formation that enter into the examination and and analysis process. However, it is generally accepted that the materials to be compared need to be written in the same style: cursive to cursive, hand printing to hand printing, upper case to upper case, lower case to lower case, and one of the first steps in methodology is to determine that the materials provided are indeed comparable according to this principle.

Q. Can you examine documents in a foreign language?

A. Yes, it is possible, but the examiner must first learn about the characteristics of the written language and how that writing is taught. For example, in some languages, placement of diacriticals (distinguishing strokes) is important, and in other languages, shading of handwritten strokes is significant. The actual methods of examination are the same, but factors are weighed differently when the structure of the writing varies among languages.

Q. Can a document examiner work with photocopies of questioned documents?

A. This question must be answered on a case by case basis. If the copy is of good quality, and if there is enough information in the writing to allow an opinion, a copy can be sufficient. But there are some situations where the opinion rests on a subtle aspect of the writing that might only be visible on an original viewed under the microscope. In such situations, examination of the original is critical. Often the examiner's opinion must be qualified due to limitations on the examination process due to submission of non-original documents.

Q. Can a client fax documents to you for examination?

A. There is a wide range in reproduction quality of faxed documents. Until recently a faxed document was of minimal use for comparison of handwriting. The fax process could digitize the writing line, obscure details, and add flaws to the document. A large number of fax machines still produce poor quality documents. However, there are now higher quality fax machines, and there is also a process of electronic faxing in which a document is scanned and transmitted to a virtual fax number through the internet. As a result there are some faxed documents of improved clarity and containing more detail. It is best to evaluate faxed documents on a case-by-case basis. Of course, there are document questions about the faxing process itself, but those are best handled by examination of the actual faxed documents rather than a fax of the fax.