Not to be confused with the pseudoscience of graphology, which a sage of sorts essentially guesses by the way a T is crossed whether or not one is the type of woman who amuses herself studying a narcotics Task Force, handwriting analysis, as a forensic technique, simply put is the comparison of handwriting samples for the purpose of determining who their author is.
One need not be a professional questioned document examiner with years of training in the field to figure out who wrote what; sometimes all it takes is someone with an eye for detail.
If I wanted to know who sketched the map above or which, if any, Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement officer jotted down the telephone number of, for instance, Mr. Grant, I could collate the unknown penning to known specimens. Using the writing of two distinct detectives I might compare a lower case letter from one man or an upper case letter from the other man to the coinciding letters in the mysterious “Grant” to try to get a match.
What do you think -- were they written by the same person?
Now something unique, such as the way the number 8 is written by someone:
As good as an autograph, that's!