No Conclusion (SWGDOC Position 5)
Definition
The midpoint of the SWGDOC scale, indicating that the evidence is equally consistent with a common source or different sources. It is a considered finding, not a failure to examine, and arises legitimately from limited materials or balanced evidence.
- Position
- Midpoint of the SWGDOC conclusion scale
- Meaning
- Evidence equally consistent with common or different source
- Status
- A considered finding, not a failure to examine
Common questions
Is a no conclusion finding the same as the examination failing?+
No. It is a legitimate outcome reported when the available handwriting or evidence genuinely does not favour either a common or a different source, distinct from an inconclusive result caused by insufficient or unsuitable material.
Why does the SWGDOC scale need a midpoint position at all?+
Without it, examiners would be pressured to lean toward identification or elimination even when the evidence is genuinely balanced, so the midpoint preserves the option to report exactly what the comparison supports and nothing more.
Related terms
- Courtroom-Language Translation Problem
- The empirically documented gap between what forensic verbal conclusion terms (such as 'strong probability') are intended to convey by examiners and what...
- Elimination (SWGDOC)
- The most definitive negative conclusion on the SWGDOC scale, meaning fundamental differences in writing habits that cannot be attributed to disguise, natural...
- ENFSI Evaluative Standard
- The European Network of Forensic Science Institutes 'Standard for Formulation of Evaluative Forensic Science Expert Opinions' (2015/2016), which requires examiners to reason...
- Foundational Validity as Applied
- PCAST's standard requiring that a forensic discipline be validated through black-box studies measuring real-examiner error rates under realistic conditions, not just laboratory...
- Identification (SWGDOC)
- The most positive conclusion on the SWGDOC scale, meaning the examiner has found individualising agreement in all significant habitual writing characteristics, with...
- Likelihood Ratio (LR)
- The ratio of two conditional probabilities: the probability of the observed evidence given the prosecution's hypothesis (same source), divided by the probability...
- PCAST 2016 Report
- The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology 2016 report 'Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods,'...
- Population-Frequency Anchoring
- The practice of grounding a conclusion about feature rarity in empirically measured frequency data for those features in the relevant writing population,...
- SWGDOC Nine-Point Scale
- The conclusion scale developed by the Scientific Working Group for Forensic Document Examination, running from 'identification' (most positive) through 'no conclusion' (midpoint)...