In brief, specimen or exemplar materials represent the output or product of a writer or device. When properly obtained, they exemplify the feature set, including the ‘full’ range of variation, possessed by that specific writer or device. They are used to assess ‘within-writer’ (or ‘within-device’) variation, in contrast to ‘between-writer’ (or ‘between-device’) variation in the population of interest.
Related questions:
- What is a specimen/exemplar?
- What type of specimen samples do you need?
- How much specimen material do you need?
- How is proof of specimen material achieved?