The Heterogeneity of Handwriting

The practice of handwriting identification has been criticized by the judiciary of late for not providing the empirical data in support of its claims for the uniqueness of writing and the significance of its discriminating elements. This investigation is an endeavor to satisfy the requirement by describing a study of a collection of nearly 1000 writers executing similar writing standards in which many of the normal variables have been controlled. With the exception of two writers who were professional penmen, no difficulties were encountered in discriminating between writers. Owing to the range of natural variation in some individuals, however, it is possible that there may be a few specimens in the collection having common authorship that have not been appropriately associated by the limited selection
of discriminating elements employed in the study. Suffice it to say, this kind of error does not lead
to inaccuracies in writer identification. The frequency of occurrence reported of the discrminating
elements selected provides some indication of their relative significance.