Chemistry - Forgeries

Today at Science we did something that also relates to Forensics, it's the handwriting. We were asked to write a signature on a piece of paper and a friend has to copy our signature. Then we put dots on every corner or end of the letters on our own signature and the copy of the signature that our friend had done. We used a tracing paper to trace the dots and compared the two together.

Graphologists are forensic experts who look at handwriting.



Many things can be forged: art works, money, writing, etc

Forgery link

Aim: To Analyse a signature using forensic science.

Material:

A pen / pencil
Tracing Paper
Writing paper
A ruler

Steps:

A. Top Of Letter Analysis

1. Sign your name on a sheet of writing paper and get someone else to try to copy it.
2. Place the tracing paper over both signatures and make a dot at the top point of each letter – for both signatures.
3. Join up the dots for both signatures to get two zigzag lines across the signatures. Are the lines the same?

B. Bottom of Letter Analysis

1. Put some fresh tracing paper over both signatures.
2. Put a dot at the bottom of each letter.
3. Join up the dots to make zig zag lines. Are the lines the same?

C. Slant Analysis

1. Put a fresh piece of tracing paper over both signatures.
2. Mark a vertical line down through the middle of each letter (using a ruler), slanting it in the same direction as
the letter.
3. Compare the set of lines for both signatures. 
What do they tell you.

Findings:

	You	Friend
Top Letter Analysis Are the lines the same?	Almost	No, well almost close
Bottom Letter Analysis Are the lines the same?	they're all different	No but almost
Slant Analysis What are the slants telling you?	It's telling me that I neatly wrote it	It's telling me that it followed the lines carefully and she did is calmly without being aggressive.

Conclusion:

I learnt what the signatures of others are telling me. It was fun to talk with my friends about each other's signature. There were some struggles but we managed to get through it.





Activity : Get someone to try to forge your signature and then try both of these methods to analyse it.

Write up the findings based on the following questions.

  Writing analysis of a friends forgery.

     

The size of the letters – all big, all small, mixed?	Mixed
Where they dot the ’ i ‘– over the top or off to the left or off to the right, or not at all	not at all
How they cross their t – straight, angled up or down, where on the t stroke it is crossed	Angle Up
The slant of the letters (use a ruler) – forward, backward, upright, mixed	Mixed
Are there breaks in words, or are all the letters in the words joined up	there are break in words
The length of stalks on y, q, p, below the lines – long or short	Long