Handwriting Analysis

•Letter form– This includes curves, slants, the proportional size of letters (relationship between the size of short and tall letters and between the height and width of a single letter), the slope of writing, and the use and appearance of connecting lines (links) between letters. A person may form a letter differently depending on where the letter falls in a word – beginning, middle, or end. So an analyst will try to find examples of each letter in each placement.

What Does Your Handwriting Say About You?

Did you know that how you write can indicate more than 5,000 personality traits? The size of your letters, spacing between words, shapes of your letters and more can all signify different characteristics that say a lot about you.

For example, if you write with rounded letters, then this could mean you are creative and artistic. Whereas if you write with pointed letters, then this could mean you are intense and curious.

Handwriting analysis (also known as graphology) can even be used for detecting lies and revealing possible health ailments.

Check out the infographic below – or read the copy outline at the bottom of the page – to learn what your handwriting says about you. It’s also fun analyzing the handwriting of your friends and family members, so be sure to hand it off or pass it along!

Writing Items and More

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How Your Handwriting Can Point to Your Personality

Graphology

Graphology is the study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing a writer’s character, personality, abilities, etc.

How you write can indicate more than 5,000 different personality traits.

In the medical field, it can be used to refer to the study of handwriting as an aid in diagnosis and tracking of diseases.

Size of Your Letters

• Large letters: You are outgoing, people-oriented, outspoken and love attention. This can also mean that you put up a front and pretend to have a lot of confidence.
• Average letters: You are well-adjusted and adaptable.
• Small letters: You are shy or withdrawn, studios, concentrated and meticulous.

Spacing between Words

• Wide spacing: You enjoy your freedom and don’t like to be overwhelmed or crowded.
• Narrow spacing: You can’t stand to be alone. You tend to crowd people and be intrusive.

Slanting

• No slant: You don’t let your emotions get the best of you. You tend to be logical and practical.
• Slants to the right: You are open to new experiences and enjoy meeting new people.
• Slants to the left: You tend to keep to yourself and generally like to work behind the scenes. If you are right-handed and your handwriting slants to the left, you may be expressing rebellion.

Shape of Letters

• Rounded letters: You are creative and artistic.
• Pointed letters: You are more aggressive, intense, very intelligent and curious.
• Connected letters: You are logical, systematic and make decisions carefully.

Looping

• Narrow “L” loops: You may be restricting yourself, which could lead to feelings of tension.
• Wide “L” loops: You’re relaxed and spontaneous, self-expression comes easily to you.
• Narrow “e” loops: You tend to be skeptical of others; you tend not to be swayed by the emotions of others.
• Wide “e” loops: You are open minded and enjoy trying new experiences.

Dotting Your I’s

• Dot high over the “i”: You have a great imagination.
• Slashing your “i’s”: Overly self-critical, don’t have a lot of patience for inadequacy or people that don’t learn from their mistakes.
• Circle your “i’s”: Visionary, child-like.
• Dot right over the “i”: You are detail-oriented, organized, and emphatic in what you say or do.

Crossing Your T’s

• Very top of “T”: You’re ambitious, optimistic and have good self-esteem.
• Right in the middle: You are confident and feel comfortable in your own skin.
• Long crosses: You are very determined and enthusiastic. However, you tend to be stubborn and have a hard time letting things go.
• Short crosses: You tend to be lazy and show lack of determination.

Open and Closed O’s

• Open: You are talkative, social, able to express your feelings, have little secrecy.
• Closed: You are private, limited to sharing your personal feelings, introvert.

Lowercase cursive “S”

• Round lowercase cursive “s”: You are a people pleaser and tend to avoid confrontation.
• Pointy lowercase cursive “s”: You enjoy learning new things. You are inquisitive and ambitious.
• Wide towards the bottom: You might not be following your heart in your career or other pursuits.

Page Margins

• Left-hand margin: You tend to live in the past and have a hard time letting go of things
• Write all over the page: You can’t sit still or relax. Your mind is constantly running.
• Right-hand margin: You fear the unknown; you constantly worry about the future.

Writing Pressure

• Heavy pressure: You are good with commitment and taking things seriously. If the pressure is excessively heavy, you tend to be uptight and can react quickly to criticism.
• Light Pressure: You are sensitive and show empathy to people, but you also have lack of vitality.

Writing Speed

• If you write quickly: You are impatient, dislike delays or time wasters.
• If you write slowly: You are more organized, methodical and self-reliant.

Signature

• Not legible: You are very private, hard to read or understand.
• Legible: You are confident and comfortable in your own skin; you don’t need to pretend you’re something you’re not.

Lie Detector

Handwriting that is bunched up, moved out of alignment, or otherwise different from the rest of the writing indicates a lie.

Writing “I” to refer to yourself

• People who make the capital “I” (to refer to themselves) larger than other capital letters tend to be arrogant.
• People who make their capital “I” (to refer to themselves) smaller than other capital letters tend to be happy with themselves.

What Your Handwriting Says About Your Health

Note: The information pertaining to health should not be used for self-diagnosis.

• High blood pressure: Writing with variable pressure is one possible indicator that you have high blood pressure, especially when it goes from light to dark.
• Alzheimer’s disease: Handwriting deteriorates as the mental faculties deteriorate. One of the many factors includes handwriting that changes to irregular or altered letters coupled with trembles in the writing. The writing will also slow down.
• Schizophrenia: When the slant varies within a sentence or within the same word frequently, it is one form of evidence the person is not having continual contact with reality.
• Parkinson’s disease: One of the signs of Parkinson’s disease is very small or cramped handwriting – micrographic. Sometimes the handwriting can become so small even the writer canto read it.

Energy Levels

• Handwriting with heavy pressure: Where the writing appears dark, or shows through to the back of the paper indicates high levels of energy.
• A light pressure indicates a lack of energy or tiredness.

• Presidential Signatures and Favorite Signing Pens (Blog Post): See a few noteworthy president signatures and what their handwriting suggests about their personalities.
• The Benefits of Handwriting vs. Typing (Infographic): After you discover what your handwriting says about you, see how handwriting is linked to improved creativity, problem-solving skills and more.
• Choosing the Write Pen Types (Blog Post): Learn about the different types of pens and see tips to choose the pen for your writing task.
• 5 Best Stylus Pens for iPads, iPhones and Drawing (Video): Learn about active and passive styluses, and the best stylus pens for every job.
• The Best Pens of The Year (Blog Post): View the best pens of the year in our top pen categories.

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Handwriting Analysis

Handwriting analysis falls into the questioned documents section of forensic science. These documents are examined by expert questioned documents examiners or QDEs. QDEs look for forgeries and alterations and make comparisons if there is an original sample of handwriting available.

Handwriting is an individual characteristic. This means that handwriting is unique for each person. Each person has their own style. Handwriting analysts say that people could have a few writing characteristics that are the same but the likelihood of having any more than that is impossible. The similarity in handwriting would be due to the style characteristics that we were taught when we were learning handwriting in school out of a book. Thus, handwriting is as unique as a fingerprint.

Handwriting analysis is looking for small differences between the writing of a sample where the writer is known and a writing sample where the writer is unknown. Instead of beginning to look for similarities in the handwriting, a QDE begins to search for differences since it’s the differences that determine if the document is a forgery. A QDE is looking at three things: letter form, line form, and formatting.

•Letter form– This includes curves, slants, the proportional size of letters (relationship between the size of short and tall letters and between the height and width of a single letter), the slope of writing, and the use and appearance of connecting lines (links) between letters. A person may form a letter differently depending on where the letter falls in a word – beginning, middle, or end. So an analyst will try to find examples of each letter in each placement.

•Line form– This includes how smooth and dark the lines are, which indicates how much pressure the writer applies while writing and the speed of the writing.

•Formatting– This includes the spacing between letters, the spacing between words, the placement of words on a line, and the margins a writer leaves empty on a page. It also considers spacing between lines — in other words, do strokes from words on one line intersect with strokes in words on the line below and above it?

Content, such as grammar, spelling, phrasing, and punctuation should also be looked at.

A problem that arises during handwriting analysis is a simulation, which is the attempt to disguise one’s handwriting or the attempt to copy another’s. Simulation is a huge problem because it can make it much harder to make a determination about a questioned document or it can make it impossible. It can be possible to determine simulation though. The following factors are to be looked at:

• Dark and thick starts and finishes for words

• A lot of pen lifts

All of these factors are present when someone is forming letters slowly and carefully instead of naturally which is done quickly and without a second thought. Simulation is only one factor that could lead to a handwriting analysis being inaccurate. Some other factors include drugs, exhaustion, and illness. Other factors are made by human error, like comparing uppercase and lowercase letters or by not having a good exemplar (sample from the suspect).