What needs to be clarified
Assess whether the texts support authorship comparison and which combinations of linguistic features support or weaken the proposed common authorship.
Materials to prepare
- Complete disputed thread export with dates and reply order
- Extended posts of verified provenance by the comparison writer
- Information about editing and autocorrection
What to compare
Separate quotations, borrowed passages and interface effects from original writing. Compare sentence construction, punctuation, argument links and forms of address. Check recurrence across posts and whether topic, interlocutor, autocorrection or editing could explain similarities and differences.
Possible outcome of the analysis
A feature comparison table may support a reasoned common-authorship assessment or an inconclusive finding, identifying unusable passages and further samples needed.
Limits of the conclusions
One error neither identifies a writer nor proves disguise. Short, corrected or jointly prepared posts may contain insufficient individual writing.