Six Basic Factors in Handwriting Classification
Theodora LeH. Smith · The Journal of Criminal Law Criminology and Police Science · 1954
Effective scientific investigation of any subject depends upon the development of a highly reliable and differentiating set of measures which will form the means by which specified aspects of the problem at hand may be formulated and checked and gradually a body of dependable information can be accumulated. This is true of handwriting as of any other subject. It was felt to be necessary to examine the whole field by achieving some sort of systematic order. The routine work required to complete a classification for handwriting has taken years, but the results of such measures are beginning to show up and may be interesting to workers who approach handwriting from many angles. A classification is arrived at by determining, first of all, those things that do not belong together. A process of analysis and separation has to take place, and for handwriting this was a prolonged and complicated task. Considerable experimentation showed that six major divisions, adaptable to measurement, but not necessarily always measured by a ruler, proved to be an adequate break-down of the first set of graphic factors, which together make up any writing anywhere. These factors are speed, size, slant, spacing, pressure, and form. The method of comparison was resorted to, due to the limitation of experimental conditions. To set up a series of scales of millimeter measures would so enlarge the field as to make practical work impossible.