ELEMENTS OF WRITING MOVEMENTS

• The average force with which the pen meets the paper, or the usual force of writing.

• This is one of the most personal, but somewhat hidden, features of writing.

• The act of intermittently forcing the pen against the paper surface with an increase in pressure or a periodic increase in writing pressure.

• The quality of the balance of motion or the harmonious recurrence of strokes or impulses. 

• Rhythm is considered to be one of the most essential, because there is nothing so hard to imitate in handwriting as the exact quality of a muscular rhythm.

• Refers to the relative degree of the writer’s proficiency. 

• It cannot be accurately measured although it can be grouped as to poor, average, and good.

• Writing skill is independent of many factors, manual dexterity being the most important. Its basis is either legibility or symmetry.

A. Legibility is the degree to which glyphs (individual characters) in writing are understandable or recognizable based on appearance.

B. Symmetry refers to the degree of proportion, balance, or harmony of the formation of strokes

• Speed cannot be measured precisely from the finished handwriting, but it can be interpreted in board term as to slow and drawn, deliberate, average, and rapid.

•INDICATION OF RAPIDNESS IN WRITING

1.Smooth, unbroken strokes

2.Misplaced and misshaped "i" dots and "t" cross

3.Joining of initial or of words

4.Letters tapered illegibly towards the end of words

5.Mark difference in pressure contact and down strokes

6.Wide writings and Spacing

7.Simplification of letters especially in capitals

INDICATION OF SLOWNESS IN WRITING

1.Broken strokes, wavy lines.

2. "i" dots and "t" crosses made and placed perfectly.

3. Pauses, unnecessary marks, and angles retouching.

4.Carefully made the final spacing

5.Little difference in pressure on up and down strokes.

6.Ornamentals of flourishing letters 

• The interruption in a stroke caused by removing the writing instrument from the paper.

• The disconnection between letters and letter combinations may be due to a lack of movement control.

• Using a ballpoint pen may cause a pen lift due to the failure of the ball to rotate.

Hiatus a special form of pen-lift in which there is an obvious gap between letters

• Refers to the more obvious increase in the width of the letter strokes or the widening of the ink strokes due to the added ink on the flexible pen point or the use of the stub pen.

• Known as Pen Hold

• The location of the pen about the paper surface, which can be determined by the presence of the emphasis or pen shading.

• Represents the reach of the hand with the wrist at rest.

• It is the average scope or limits of the pen during the process of writing with the wrist of the hand still.

• The stroke that normally goes back over another writing stroke; it is slightly to occur in other handwriting.

• A stroke going back to repair a defective portion of the writing stroke.

• Careful patching is a common fault in forgeries.

• The characteristic in writing showing irregular shaky lines that deviate from uniformed strokes.

• Tremors are apparent even without magnification.

CAUSES OF TREMOR

1. Lack of skill- on the part of the writer; to self-consciousness during the writing process; or to hesitation which is the result of copying or imitating process.

2. Lack of smoothness - tremor may be due to uncontrollable nervousness on the part of the writer or in illiterate writing.

3. Clumsiness - partly due to lack of clear mental impressions of the form which is being made. Tremor of age, of illiteracy and weakness, is not always distinguished from each other but can usually distinguish from tremors of fraud.

KINDS OF TREMOR

A. Genuine tremor includes:

  1. Tremors of age

  2. Tremors of illiteracy

  3. Tremor of Weakness

B. Tremor of Fraud