When choosing an expert – ask them about their training, whether they work to accredited procedures, if their work is peer reviewed and whether they will attend Court if necessary.

Yin, F., Wang, Q.F. Zhang, X.Y. et al.: Chinese handwriting recognition competition (ICDAR)Washington D.C., USA, pp. 1464–1469 (2013) Melissa Taylor, the NIST human factors expert who led the group of authors, said that the report provides the forensic handwriting community with a road map for staying relevant. But the threat of irrelevance doesn’t come only from the decline in handwriting. Part of the challenge, she says, arises from the field of forensic science itself. In the analysis processit is essential for the professional graphologist to look for a few minutes and feel what each letter conveys. We’ll see at a glance if the letters are legible, what the layout is, if are any mistakes, erasures, corrections, and if there is text-signature agreement. We perform what is called overview or a gestalt look at the spelling. This provides valuable information about whether someone’s handwriting is harmonious or if there are important disproportions.

The End of Handwriting Examination, or a New Beginning?

The questioning about handwriting identification is not completely correct, but it is reasonable. Handwriting identification does have a few defects, whether on scientific principle or standard system. However, handwriting identification is scientific to a certain extent because it has existed for thousands of years and has been developing until now. We should be objective and tolerant for handwriting identification. After all, scientific evidence such as handwriting identification cannot solve all the judicial issues. As the American scholar John Hord said, “no matter how significant progress the science will make, we cannot solve all the judicial issues, because science is a relative term and its accuracy could never reach 100%.” On the other hand, the question about handwriting identification will promote its development toward a more scientific direction, such as making more comprehensive and scientific appraisal standard, improve appraisal personnel training assessment mechanism, and promote research on automatic identification. Questioning these techniques will bring about a forced development of handwriting identification, which is bound to have a more broad space for development in the future. Financial support and sponsorship Graphologists are experts in the field of graphology, one definition of which is ‘the study of handwriting especially for the purpose of character analysis’.

Admissibility of expert opinion should give full play to the role of the rule of corroboration. Since scientific evidence is mostly indirect evidence, it requires other evidences to confirm each other, which cannot simply rely on an expert opinion for the final judgment. As for the handwriting identification opinion evidence, as an exception of the judges' free judgment of evidence to the principle of its establishment, there are two main reasons for the reinforcing rules: on the one hand, some people still doubt the scientificity of handwriting identification. If there is no reinforcement for the evidence with doubts, the suspect will spread to justice itself; on the other hand, the handwriting identification is quite professional, especially for the judge in our country. Without professional knowledge and due to excessive reliance on the handwriting expert opinion, the handwriting identification opinion might substitute the judgment of judges. The rule of corroboration could play the role of reviewing and correcting the opinion of handwriting identification.[ 4] Therefore, for the handwriting appraisal opinion, it especially needs the court to leverage the role of examination and cross-examination of evidence. CONCLUSION While investigating and comparing each of the above categories, the analysers also need to consider the following. This Handwriting Analysis Chart include characteristics, aspects and traits in handwriting that will help you through the analysis process. Evett IW (1996) Expert evidence and forensic misconceptions of the nature of exact science. Sci Justice 36:118–12The importance of handwriting identification was emphasized by the century-heritage dispute case between “the first rich woman” Nina Wang and her father-in-law Wang Din-shin in Hong Kong, which took 8 years and costed hundreds of millions. The focus of the case was on the authenticity of Teddy Wang's signature in the will before and after. Nina Wang finally won the case, but the judgment was not based on handwriting identification opinions. The court held that the authenticity of Teddy Wang's signature was difficult to identify and handwriting experts on both the sides could not make any overwhelming conclusion. Finally, the judge made a decision based on the burden of proof and environmental testimony in common law.[ 1] Is this evidence relevant to the sociohistorical context of the play, either when the play was set (1912) or when the play was written and first performed (1945)? If so, how?

Writing by hand is something that most of us do without much thought, but the way we write can offer an insight into our personality.

Crossword clues of the day

Where are the crosses on t’s and dots on i’s? Are the t’s crossed? Is the cross on the t at the top, middle or bottom of the letter? Are the I’s dotted? If so, are they dotted to the left, the centre, or the right of the I?