Copy-Book Styles
Some of a writer’s letter shapes, handwriting style, and other characteristics might be shared by other writers because they were taught the same original copy-book system. In the United States, different states and different school districts within the states teach several different copy-book systems. Internationally, different systems are also taught. Writers might retain remnants of the system they learned as children. For example, second-language writings of people taught in a Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet style will be influenced by Cyrillic letter styles and might contain some similarities. Similarly, the hand printing and numeral styles taught to drafters, architects, and engineers might result in apparent similarities in the hand printing of people trained in those professions.