Disguise is the conscious, intentional effort by a person to change or conceal his normal writings. Disguise is attempted in an effort to prepare writings that can later be disclaimed or that the writer hopes will be anonymous and cannot be traced to the source. The success of an attempt to disguise writings depends on the writer’s skill and knowledge of writings. Most attempts at disguise involve one or more of the following: change in slant, change in size, change in shapes of capital (upper-case) letters, changes in the shapes and sizes of loops in letters that contain them, use of bizarre letter designs, or block (squared) hand printing. Only rarely is the opposite, non-writing hand used. Fraud examiners should be aware that it is possible to successfully disguise writings to the point that they cannot be positively identified, even by experts. This is especially true when only limited amounts of writings are
involved.