How much can you tell about people´s personality just by looking at how they write?
To answer this question there´s a couple of students who have done researches on handwriting.

- What can be told about a person from handwriting?
Handwriting reveals a lot of aspects of the person´s personality and character related to intellectual qualities, different kinds of memory, subconscious mind, emotional responsiveness, energy, fears etc. Handwriting is like body language.

- It sounds as if handwriting analysis could tell everything about anyone. Is that true?
No, it isn´t because there are a lot of things that it can´t reveal. For example handwriting analysis can´t identify age, race, religion, whether a person is right-or left-handed, or the future.

- However, as you put it, handwriting analysis seems to be more a science than an art, doesn´t it?
Actually it´s a clinical science. It falls under the same category as psychology and it´s useful to understand the problems of young people in order to help them.

- Some people´s handwriting often change from day to day. Is that significant?
Well, it depends on the fact that our emotions and moods change from minute to minute and this is normal . However if there is a total variation in handwriting style, you are a very moody person.

- What is the most recurrent aspect about handwriting?
It is slanting to the left or to the right

- What does it reveal?
Handwriting that slants to the left or backward indicates a reserved person who values his privacy, who doesn´t show his feelings easily and is able to keep his emotions hidden and his relationship secret. For example people who have experienced a traumatic event in their life or a severe illness often pull their handwriting to the left because they turn their thoughts and feelings inward.

- What about those who slant to the right?
They are much warmer, more friendly and more emotional that those who slant to the left. They tend to have more empathy with other people

- What about people who print?
People who print have put up a barrier to keep the world from getting to know them. They do not easily express their inner feelings. People who print take longer to experience intimacy and tend to have a strong external protective mental shell that is often seen as confidence. Some experts say that it is important for children to learn how to do cursive from a young age because studies in Canada found that children who learn cursive writing immediately are much more self-confident, they feel good and confident about themselves as individuals.

- What about those who have a combination of both printing and cursive?
People who mix and match cursive and print are quite normal. It indicates a tendency to be in a hurry and be flexible.

- Many students prefer to write with a pencil rather than a pen. Why that?
Pencils allow you to correct some mistakes and for this many students prefer them. Anyway experts say that when it comes to teaching it is not the instrument that you use that matters, it is rather how you´re taught. So we shouldn´t worry if students keep using a pencil in their writing. Absolutely not as long as it doesn´t occur in formal tests where pencil writing is not allowed.

   Maria Caporaso
e Mariassunta Zotti