Slash wounds tend to look like bullet wounds that only graze the surface of the skin. Incision wounds, on the other hand, always have lengths greater than their depth, and you'll easily notice that a greater amount of subsurface tissue is exposed in an almost oval fashion. Wounds where the attacker not only stuck the victim with something, but twisted the object, cause the most shock and speed up the death process whereas blood vessel hemorrhage or bleeding to death are the most common pathways to death. Generally, the depth of the wound is not all that important. The blow produces a crushing effect on the human body, resulting in contusions, abrasions, lacerations, fractures, or rupture of vital organs.
Brain contusions are especially difficult to analyze.
The general rule is that trauma will be most severe on the opposite side of impact. This is because the brain floats around inside the head, but there may be what are called contrecoups where the pathway to brain trauma has to be reconstructed. Death results rapidly whenever a skull fracture is involved. Wounds to the body area usually take longer to cause death, sometimes days. Female victims are always checked for whether or not they were virgins via looking at the hymen, if any.