Planar decompositions of tableaux and Schur function determinants

In this paper we describe planar decompositions of skew shape tableaux into strips and use the shapes of these strips to generate a determinant. We then prove that each of these determinants is equal to the Schur function for the skew shape. The Jacobi-Trudi identity, the dual Jacobi-Trudi identity, the Giambelli identity and the rim ribbon identity of Lascoux and Pragacz are all special cases of this theorem. A compact Gessel-Viennot lattice path argument provides the proof.