# Handwriting analysis: pure hooey or just 67% hooey? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 1, 2013, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handwriting-analysis-pure-hooey-or-just-67-hooey/667712 "2013-09-01T05:02:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handwriting-analysis-pure-hooey-or-just-67-hooey/667712/21 "2013-09-02T02:13:58Z")
None identical, but trained handwriting analysts can find distinct similarities that are common in your hand writing style. I don’t think it’s hooey but I do think it’s something that people get training to do accurately, along with other forensic techniques. Just reading a book on the subject doesn’t make you a handwriting analyst. ---
**Author:** ![Sahirrnee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sahirrnee/32/13937_2.png) [@Sahirrnee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sahirrnee)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handwriting-analysis-pure-hooey-or-just-67-hooey/667712/22 "2013-09-02T02:20:42Z")
Other than the times I print the capital letters of my first and and last name my signature looks the same. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handwriting-analysis-pure-hooey-or-just-67-hooey/667712/23 "2013-09-02T12:49:01Z")
I think your thread title and your poll are essentially unrelated. I don’t think anybody that analyzes signatures thinks it works because signatures are identical. I also think I can recognize a few people’s handwriting, and I’ve never even tried to be a handwriting analyst. I think there is something there about the handwriting I can exploit to identify the writer. I expect that if I made a systematic study of the subject, I’d be able to identify and to some degree quantify a number of things to exploit and so improve the process. Do you doubt this? ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handwriting-analysis-pure-hooey-or-just-67-hooey/667712/24 "2013-09-02T14:39:20Z")
I once read an article about of documents concerning the [Roswell UFO incident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident) that had been released by US authorities. An investigator had managed to find a 100% match between a signature by Harry S Truman in that material and a signature on another document. The conclusion he drew was that it could be nothing but a photocopy and therefore fake. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handwriting-analysis-pure-hooey-or-just-67-hooey/667712/25 "2013-09-03T14:05:27Z")
I said 2 times. I noticed quite some time ago that my own signatures are far from consistent. There’s dozens of essentially random factors that influence what my signature will look like: how tired I am, how much of a hurry I’m in, how large or small the signature space is, how good the writing instrument is (if the pen is crappy/nearly dead, I might feel compelled to go back and “retouch” my signature), etc., etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handwriting-analysis-pure-hooey-or-just-67-hooey/667712.md?page=1)