Frequency of Selected Hand Printing Characteristics Occurring within a National Population: The New International Version Bible Across America©

Statistical analyses of data gathered for the hand-printing characteristics of a large national population of writers has yet to be undertaken in the field of document examination. Previous, smaller studies documented the frequency of characteristics (e.g. skill, writing systems, style, and letter formations), but have not been updated for nearly twenty years. This research project examines hand-printing characteristics, specifically letter formations, to discover data which can be analyzed to establish frequency of their occurrence.
The source for this project is the New International Version Bible Across America^© published by Zondervan. This version contains the writing of more than 31,000 individuals representing all fifty American states and abroad. Data for this study are based on a sample set of 500 people. The characteristics studied included various formations of “a,” “n,” and “r.” This research will be compared with previous findings from other studies, the most recent of which occurred in 1992 and will include recommendations for future study regarding the distinctiveness of hand-printing characteristics.