The multi-individuality of handwriting

The scientific research conducted so far as well as rich practical expert experience point to the fact that handwriting is individual to each person. On the other hand, there are quite infrequent cases of developing two or more different styles of writing by the same person, during learning-to-write process. These various styles of handwriting are used interchangeably, either spontaneously or intentionally; the effect being as if different persons can be attributed to authorship. The Author proposes to refer to this barely known phenomenon as "the multi-individuality of handwriting". The identification of writer of this type of handwriting is possible, however may pose serious problems. Variations of handwriting of the same person may lead forensic examiners to faulty expert opinion, if a known sample does not reflect the writing style of a questioned entry. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of study of multi-individual handwriting. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.