How does one become a handwriting expert?

Question

Are there classes where a person can learn how to analyze handwriting and become an expert witness for court cases? If not, how do these people learn? Please include links!

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Handwriting experts, or questioned documents examiners, differ from handwriting analysts, or graphologists. Experts examine documents, verify signatures and detect forgeries. They study and analyze disputed handwriting or documents for authentication or legal purposes. They work to detect forgery, counterfeit and fraud.

Step1
Research and become familiar with handwriting as it is examined by questioned documents experts. Read general handwriting books and continue with your field of interest such as forensic science, fraud or forgery. Other topics to study include law, criminology and accounting depending on your interest.

Step2
Enroll in school. Take certification courses in handwriting or correspondences courses which usually take 18 months to
complete. Consider professional accredited coursework.
Step3
Document examiners receive certification by passing a written exam, submitting case files from your past cases and finally passing an oral exam. Practice for 10 years or more and contribute to your field by publishing and presenting at conferences and you may qualify for a Diplomate Diploma.
Step4
Consider a specialized branch of work such as forensics or fraud. Examinations are required for both. Fraud examiners need a bachelor's degree before continuing with further certification. Forensics requires a Bachelor of Science degree.
Step5
Practice what you learn. Determine a person's natural writing style by examining their own original writings. Get an internship or an apprenticeship. Check out professional associations to see where the opportunities are.
Step6
Join handwriting associations, attend seminars and conferences and subscribe to journals on handwriting (see Resources below). This keeps you up with current issues in the field and is a networking opportunity.
Step7
Publish in professional journals, teach or speak at conferences to advertise your expertise and become known in the field.

Source(s):

http://www.ehow.com/how_2108485_be-handw…

Answer 2

How to Become a Handwriting Expert
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Related Tags: examiners | handwriting | fraud | Society of Questioned Document Examiners Association of Certified Fraud Examiners | criminology



Instructions
Step 1:
Research and become familiar with handwriting as it is examined by questioned documents experts. Read general handwriting books and continue with your field of interest such as forensic science, fraud or forgery. Other topics to study include law, criminology and accounting depending on your interest.
Step 2:
Enroll in school. Take certification courses in handwriting or correspondences courses which usually take 18 months to complete. Consider professional accredited coursework.
Step 3:
Document examiners receive certification by passing a written exam, submitting case files from your past cases and finally passing an oral exam. Practice for 10 years or more and contribute to your field by publishing and presenting at conferences and you may qualify for a Diplomate Diploma.
Step 4:
Consider a specialized branch of work such as forensics or fraud. Examinations are required for both. Fraud examiners need a bachelor's degree before continuing with further certification. Forensics requires a Bachelor of Science degree.
Step 5:
Practice what you learn. Determine a person's natural writing style by examining their own original writings. Get an internship or an apprenticeship. Check out professional associations to see where the opportunities are.
Step 6:
Join handwriting associations, attend seminars and conferences and subscribe to journals on handwriting (see Resources below). This keeps you up with current issues in the field and is a networking opportunity.
Step 7:
Publish in professional journals, teach or speak at conferences to advertise your expertise and become known in the field.
Tips & Warnings
Certified fraud examiners are employed in litigation support, auditing, criminology and as insurance claim inspectors.
Resources
American Society of Questioned Document Examiners
Association of Certified Fraud Examiners also has local chapters.
National Association of Document Examiners


How to Become a Handwriting Expert Provided by eHow

Source(s):

http://www.answerbag.com/articles/How-to…

Answer 3

Handwriting analysis or graphologists need to be certified to be classed as an expert and they need a diploma from a recognized institute. the last two links give the courses required to obtain a diploma. it takes about 3 years.
the first two links give information about what types of graphology there are. some people specialize in certain aspects of analysis. they also give information about what handwriting analysis is used for and how it is done.
this site gives the history of graphology
http://www.handwriting.com/facts/history…
this site is about someone who does analysis
http://www.ehandwritinganalysis.com/
this is the Graphologists Association
http://www.handwritingfoundation.org/
this shows some courses available
http://www.opencollege.info/graphology.h…
this site is a school specializing in graphology
http://www.graphology.co.uk/
Before anyone would be called into court as an expert they would need a few years experience doing analysis.

Answer 4

No, no classes. Some people just have neat handwriting, even in pre-k. But, to be an expert you practice. You can trace typed letters over and over and then try to write them perfectly without tracing. You get neater and neater over time. No classes, just practice. You could even look aat your handwriting from last month, and see what you need to improve. Go on www.dafont.com and look at each font, pick one you like and try to make it. Ask your teacher how neat your writing is, or have a neat person help you. Practice, Good luck.
PS: Nuns dont teach handwriting, and there are no more nuns teaching these days! http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…

Answer 5

Try this, for example--there's a lot there.
Or try books, classes and courses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphology
http://www.amazon.com/Handwriting-Analys…
http://www.aspghandwriting.org/main/ASPG…

Answer 6

Well,like they say,practice makes perfect!
http://www.handwritinginsights.com/
http://www.graphicinsight.co.za/courses.…
http://www.handwritinginsights.com/compa…

Answer 7

Attend classes. Course is available in Bangalore Karnataka, India.

Source(s):

nil.

Answer 8

practice over and over again.

Answer 9

Practice.

Answer 10

I believe Mouth of the South took the words out of my mouth.

Answer 11

G'day Mike its like anything study and practice mate..

Source(s):

My head

Answer 12

People still can't read my handwriting, and I'm not even a doctor.

Answer 13

by writing more and practice:D

Answer 14

Graphology is the study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing character. Real handwriting experts are known as forensic document examiners, not as graphologists. Forensic (or questioned) document examiners consider loops, dotted "i's" and crossed "t's," letter spacing, slants, heights, ending strokes, etc. They examine handwriting to detect authenticity or forgery.

Graphologists examine loops, dotted "i's" and crossed "t's," letter spacing, slants, heights, ending strokes, etc., but they believe that such handwriting minutiae are physical manifestations of unconscious mental functions. Graphologists believe such details can reveal as much about a person as astrology , palm reading, psychometry, rumpology, or the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator. However, there is no evidence that the unconscious mind is a reservoir of truth about a person, much less that graphology provides a gateway to that reservoir.

Graphology is claimed to be useful for everything from understanding health issues, morality and past experiences to hidden talents and mental problems.* However, "in properly controlled, blind studies, where the handwriting samples contain no content that could provide non-graphological information upon which to base a prediction (e.g., a piece copied from a magazine), graphologists do no better than chance at predicting... personality traits...." ["The Use of Graphology as a Tool for Employee Hiring and Evaluation," from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association] And even non-experts are able to correctly identify the gender of a writer about 70% of the time (Furnham, 204).

There are a variety of techniques used by graphologists.* Even so, the techniques of these "experts" seem to be reducible to impressions from such things as the pressure exerted on the page, spacing of words and letters, crossed t's, dotted i's, size, slant, speed and consistency of writing. Though graphologists deny it, the content of the writing is one of the more important factors in graphological character assessment. The content of a message, of course, is independent of the handwriting and should be irrelevant to the assessment.

Barry Beyerstein (1996) considers many of the notions of graphologists to be little more than sympathetic magic, e.g., the notion that leaving wide spaces between letters indicates a proneness to isolation and loneliness because the wide spaces indicate someone who does not mix easily and is uncomfortable with closeness. One graphologist claims that a person betrays his sadistic nature if he crosses his t's with lines that look like whips.

Since there is no useful theory as to how graphology might work, it is not surprising that there is no empirical evidence that any graphological characteristics significantly correlate with any interesting personality trait.

Adrian Furnham writes

Readers familiar with the techniques of cold reading will be able to understand why graphology appears to work and why so many (otherwise intelligent) people believe in it. [p. 204]

Add to cold reading, the Barnum effect, confirmation bias, communal reinforcement, the Forer effect, and subjective validation and you have a fairly complete explanation for graphology's popularity.

Graphology is another pipe dream of those who want a quick and dirty decision making process to tell them who to marry, who did the crime, who they should hire, what career they should seek, where the good hunting is, where the water, oil, or buried treasure is, etc. Graphology is another in a long list of quack substitutes for hard work. It is appealing to those who are impatient with such troublesome matters as research, evidence analysis, reasoning, logic, and hypothesis testing. If you want results and you want them now and you want them stated in strong, certain terms, graphology is for you. If, however, you can live with reasonable probabilities and uncertainty, you might try another method to pick a spouse or hire an employee.

If on the other hand, you don't mind discriminating against people on the basis of pseudoscientific non-sense, then at least have the consistency to use a Ouija board to help you pick the right graphologist.

Source(s):

http://www.skepdic.com/graphol.html

Answer 15

you can look on line or you can just practice on your own.

Answer 16

go to Catholic school and the nuns will teach you,,,,,,,,,just kidding i dont no

Source(s):

all my friends

Answer 17

I think it mostly comes at birth.

Its a talent that some people are meant to have.

Answer 18

keep practising and you'll be come one of them.

practise makes perfect

Answer 19

if thats what you choose to be