The document consists of multiple narratives describing incidents including a burglary, a lost paycheck, and a hospital fire. Each narrative presents an individual's account of the events surrounding these incidents, detailing their experiences, observations, and reactions. Additionally, it outlines a method for analyzing narratives to determine their truthfulness using metrics like mean length of utterance and narrative structure.

1. Missing Money
This statement was taken from a security guard. During his
shift a lot of money disappeared from the company's safe.
(Ignore this sentence in your analysis)
"I work the 12m - 8a shift at the research facility. I am the only
guard on duty during that shift. I like to arrive at work a few
minutes early, usually 10 - 15 minutes. This gives me time to
talk to the guard I relieve.
On the night of the break-in, I arrived at 11:50 pm. Jim Jones,
the 4p - 12m guard, and I had a conversation about the World
Series being interrupted by the earthquake. It was a terrible
thing to happen, especially for serious baseball fans. We talked
about my being a Giants fan and him being a fan of the “A’s”.
We also talked about the weather here locally and the problems
with the economy. Joe left at 11:55 pm since he knows I like to
start my rounds at exactly 12:00 midnight.
I began to suspect something was wrong about 3:00 am when I
noticed the back gate was unlocked. A few minutes later, I was
convinced that something was wrong when I found the payroll
office door unlocked and the safe open. I recalled reading a
story last year about money being taken from another facility.
The guy who took the money wasn’t caught.
My first reaction was to call the boss. The boss has instructed
us to call him in any emergency. He was pretty upset when I
woke him up at 4:00 am. At no time did I see any strangers on
the facility that night. My boss suggested that we add another
guard to the night shift. I told him that I believe this is a good
idea since it might help prevent future thefts.

2. That’s basically what happened that night."
Lost Check
This narrative is about a lost check (ignore this sentence in your
analysis).
On December 15, 19-- in the late afternoon hours, Don L.
Harrington, wife Wanda, and friends Amy Barr, Judy Partin and
Myself Bob Boone, went to Taylor’s to pick up some layaway
items. We used two cars because there was some bulky
merchandise such as bicycles and a battery-operated car. Don
had just gotten his paycheck so instead of making a trip to the
bank he would pay the balance of the layaway with his check.
Wanda usually handles the finances, so she had Don’s check in
her purse. So Wanda hands Don his check which in turn he
gives it to the layaway clerk. The clerk looked at the check and
said that she couldn’t accept it but it was obvious that the clerk
was inexperienced, because in fact it was the other clerk
working in layaway that told the clerk that she would have to
check with the manager first. So the clerk takes the check over
to the manager and we all see the manager shake her head “no.”
By this time Don sees that he can’t use his check which was a
surprise to us because it was a payroll check instead of a
personal check. But instead of causing chaos, Don decided to
pay for it in cash which Wanda had in her purse. So Don asked
her for the money, gave it to the clerk, the clerk gave him the
receipt, and we went to the back to pick up the merchandise. In
all the confusion, Don thought that Wanda had the check and
Wanda thought that Don had it and by this time we had gotten
to Don’s house. So Don called ABC Company and told the
payroll dept. that his check was lost.

3. Hospital Fire
This narrative was written by a nurse about some fires at the
hospital where she was working (ignore this sentence in your
analysis).
I arrived for work about 0640. After listening to report and
assessed my patients in 5016, 5039, 5041. This was finished by
approximately 0830. I started on passing 0900 medications with
various interruptions—i.e.: salvaging an I.V. in 5041 and filling
the feeding bag in 5016. I cannot honestly give any times for
these activities. I believe the first fire was between 0930-1000.
I know I did need to retrieve my inhaler from my car since I
have asthma that is triggered by smoke. After recovering from
that event I continued my rounds on patients and took report
from Joan to enable her to go to lunch. During this time, the
Secretary Linda and D.A. told me about some threatening phone
calls while I was in the nurse’s station trying to do some
charting. After Joan came back from lunch she asked all of us
(nurses, secretary and assistants) to be more aware of any
unusual people or situations. Shortly after this, I started to
have another asthma attack and told Joan. The alarms then went
off and the fire doors closed. As we went down the hall to close
doors, someone opened 5019 and the smoke came out. I left as
quickly as I could and sat outside until I could recover enough
to function. The remaining 2 hours were spent trying to finish
my workload and hoping nothing else would happen. Also,
about 11:15 I did an admission on 5014 but this did not take
more than 20 minutes.
Burglary
This is a statement given in relation to a burglary (ignore this
sentence in your analysis).

4. On Friday ------, 19-- I received a phone call from David Jones
saying he was in Tenn. and wouldn’t be in to work the next day.
Tried to get someone to cover his schedule and couldn’t. Went
on about my business. Started paperwork as usual. Check
everyone out in their areas. Everything was fine. Finished
paperwork. Helped Dan Harley dump trash, back in locked the
back door, and pushed button in on door. Mopped floor behind
us, so it wouldn’t be streaky. Came up to office, got my stuff
together, straightened up. Set the alarm, closed office door and
Dan and myself left. We punched out at 24:22 that night.
When we got outside, Dan’s ride was here, he got in the car and
left. Pulled off parking lot about 12:30. Everything was
organized and locked up when we left. Came back in about
5:45 am. Everything looked normal. Sandy Jones, Lane Taylor
and my wife. We all walked in together. When we got to the
door, to go in the back we looked on the hot cook table and
there was some glass and a knife. I told the 3 employees not to
do anything. I opened the office door and there was the $300
drawer, $950 bag and the deposit bag cut open. Everything was
gone. I told the 3 employees to go sit in the dining room and
called 911. I told them who I was and what happened. The
only thing I touched was the phone. It took approximately 15
min. for the police to arrive. This all took place between 5:45
am and 6:00 am.
Steps to finding the Mean Length of Utterance
The mean length of utterance is the number of words in a
sentence on average in the narrative. Any sentence that is
significantly above or below the mean is considered to be
deceptive. In order to calculate the MLU, take the following
steps:
1. Count the number of words in each sentence in the
narrative.

5. 2. Total up the number of words in all sentences for the total
word count in the narrative.
3. Count the number of sentences in the narrative.
4. Divide the total narrative word count by the number of
sentences to obtain the MLU.
5. Identify any sentences that are significantly above or
below the MLU. A very convenient way of doing this is to
figure the standard deviation from the mean and use it as a
guideline. For example, if the MLU is 17 words per sentence
and the standard deviation is 5, then the range is from 12 to 22.
Therefore any sentences that are 11 words or less or 23 words
or more are highly suspect of being deceptive. Also as in the
above example, a good rule of thumb is to assume your standard
deviation is going to be somewhere around 5 and just use it to
determine if the sentence is significantly above or below the
MLU.
Sheet1Sentence ## of
Words10203040506070809010011012013014015016017018019
02002102202302402502602702802903003103203303403503603
70380390400410420430440450460470480490500510520530540
55056057058059060061062063064065066067068069070071072
07307407507607707807908008108208308408508608708808909
009109209309409509609709809901000Total0Average0.00Stan
d. Dev.0.00
Sheet2
Sheet3
Student Handout – Analysis by Form

6. 1. Identify the formal organization of the narrative.
Basically you are going to divide the narrative into a Prologue,
Central Issue, and Epilogue. You will then have to evaluate
these in terms of balance or proportion.
2. Determine the Central Issue of the narrative. The Central
Issue (CI) is the event itself. Initially it can be somewhat
difficult to learn to identify this. With practice you will be able
to accurately identify the CI every time.
3. Determine the Prologue and Epilogue. The Prologue is the
portion of the narrative prior to the CI and the Epilogue is the
portion of the narrative after the CI.
4. Length of the Prologue and Epilogue compared to the
Central Issue. The more balanced the three parts of the
narrative are, the more it indicates truthfulness. Another thing
to pay attention to is if the subject is very detailed in one part
of the narrative and vague in another.
5. Is the narrative deceptive as to form? A narrative that has
one or two of three parts that is significantly out of balance
when compared to the others is said to be “Deceptive as to
Form.”
6. Identify any non-confirming statements in the narrative.
This is where the writer alludes to some action or activity they
are going to perform without ever telling you that they actually
performed it. Here in the mountains, this sort of statement
often starts with “fixin” as in “I was fixin to go to the grocery
store.” They did not go to the store, but the way they phrase
leads you to believe they did or had every intention of going
when in fact they did just the opposite. Weakened assertions
will often begin a non-confirming statement. Watch out for
phrases like “I started”, “I was going”, “I intended”, etc.

7. 7. One other task to perform at this stage is to identify any
non-sequential statements. These are statements that are out of
place or chronological order in the narrative. They may take
the form of an aside, a second person reference, or something
else that interrupts the flow of the narrative. At this point it is
obvious that they do not fit with that part of the narrative, but
the subject included them for some reason. The answer to “Why
the subject included this?” could yield significant information.