How To Rule Touch Typing

Typing zones on a QWERTY keyboard for each finger taken from KTouch (home row keys are circled)

Main article: Touch typing

The basic technique stands in contrast to hunt and peck typing in which the typist keeps their eyes on the source copy at all times. Touch typing also involves the use of the home row method, where typists keep their wrists up, rather than resting them on a desk or keyboard (which can cause carpal tunnel syndrome). To avoid this, typists should sit up tall, leaning slightly forward from the waist, place their feet flat on the floor in front of them with one foot slightly in front of the other, and keep their elbows close to their sides with forearms slanted slightly upward to the keyboard; fingers should be curved slightly and rest on the home row.

Many touch typists also use keyboard shortcuts when typing on a computer. This allows them to edit their document without having to take their hands off the keyboard to use a mouse. An example of a keyboard shortcut is pressing the Ctrl key plus the S key to save a document as they type, or the Ctrl key plus the Z key to undo a mistake. Other shortcuts are the Ctrl key plus the C to copy and the Ctrl key and the v key to paste, and the Ctrl key and the X key to cut. Many experienced typists can feel or sense when they have made an error and can hit the ← Backspace key and make the correction with no increase in time between keystrokes.

Hunt and peck

Hunt and peck (two-fingered typing) is a common form of typing in which the typist presses each key individually. Instead of relying on the memorized position of keys, the typist must find each key by sight. The use of this method may also prevent the typist from being able to see what has been typed without glancing away from the keys. Although good accuracy may be achieved, any typing errors that are made may not be noticed immediately due to the user not looking at the screen. There is also the disadvantage that because fewer fingers are used, those that are used are forced to move a much greater distance.

Hybrid

There are many idiosyncratic typing styles in between novice-style "hunt and peck" and touch typing. For example, many "hunt and peck" typists have the keyboard layout memorized and are able to type while focusing their gaze on the screen. Some use just two fingers, while others use 3–6 fingers. Some use their fingers very consistently, with the same finger being used to type the same character every time, while others vary the way they use their fingers.

One study examining 30 subjects, of varying different styles and expertise, has found minimal difference in typing speed between touch typists and self-taught hybrid typists. According to the study, "The number of fingers does not determine typing speed... People using self-taught typing strategies were found to be as fast as trained typists... instead of the number of fingers, there are other factors that predict typing speed... fast typists... keep their hands fixed on one position, instead of moving them over the keyboard, and more consistently use the same finger to type a certain letter." To quote doctoral candidate Anna Feit: "We were surprised to observe that people who took a typing course, performed at similar average speed and accuracy, as those that taught typing to themselves and only used 6 fingers on average"

Buffering

Some people combine touch typing and hunt and peck by using a buffering method. In the buffer method, the typist looks at the source copy, mentally stores one or several sentences, then looks at the keyboard and types out the buffer of sentences. This eliminates frequent up and down motions with the head and is used in typing competitions in which the typist is not well versed in touch typing. Not normally used in day-to-day contact with keyboards, this buffer method is used only when time is of the essence.

Thumbing

A late 20th-century trend in typing, primarily used with devices with small keyboards (such as PDAs and Smartphones), is thumbing or thumb typing. This can be accomplished using one or both thumbs. Similar to desktop keyboards and input devices, if a user overuses keys that need hard presses and/or have small and unergonomic layouts, it could cause thumb tendonitis or another repetitive strain injury.

Alphanumeric entry

In one study of average computer users, the average rate for transcription was 33 words per minute, and 19 words per minute for composition. In the same study, when the group was divided into "fast", "moderate" and "slow" groups, the average speeds were 40 wpm, 35 wpm, and 23 wpm respectively. An average professional typist reaches 50 to 80 wpm, while some positions can require 80 to 95 wpm (usually the minimum required for dispatch positions and other typing jobs), and some advanced typists work at speeds above 120 wpm.Two-finger typists, sometimes also referred to as "hunt and peck" typists, commonly reach sustained speeds of about 37 wpm for memorized text and 27 wpm when copying text, but in bursts may be able to reach speeds of 60 to 70 wpm.From the 1920s through the 1970s, typing speed (along with shorthand speed) was an important secretarial qualification and typing contests were popular and often publicized by typewriter companies as promotional tools.

A less common measure of the speed of a typist, CPM is used to identify the number of characters typed per minute. This is a common measurement for typing programs, or typing tutors, as it can give a more accurate measure of a person's typing speed without having to type for a prolonged period of time. The common conversion factor between WPM and CPM is 5. It is also used occasionally for associating the speed of a reader with the amount they have read. CPM has also been applied to 20th-century printers, but modern faster printers more commonly use PPM (pages per minute).

The fastest typing speed ever, 216 words per minute, was achieved by Stella Pajunas-Garnand from Chicago in 1946 in one minute on an IBM electric[8][9][10][11] using the QWERTY key layout.As of 2005, writer Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Using the Dvorak keyboard layout, she had maintained 150 wpm for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods, with a peak speed of 212 wpm. Blackburn, who failed her QWERTY typing class in high school, first encountered the Dvorak layout in 1938, quickly learned to achieve very high speeds, and occasionally toured giving speed-typing demonstrations during her secretarial career. She appeared on Late Night with David Letterman on January 24, 1985, but felt that Letterman made a spectacle of her.Blackburn died in April 2008.

The recent emergence of several competitive typing websites has allowed several fast typists on computer keyboards to emerge along with new records, though these are unverifiable for the most part. Two of the most notable online records that are considered genuine are 251.21 wpm on an English text on typingzone.com by Brazilian Guilherme Sandrini (equivalent to 301.45 wpm using the traditional definition for words per minute since this site defines a word as six characters rather than five)[16] and 256 wpm (a record caught on video) on TypeRacer by American Sean Wrona, the inaugural Ultimate Typing Championship winner, which was considered the highest ever legitimate score ever set on the site, until Wrona claimed it has been surpassed. Both of these records are essentially sprint speeds on short text selections lasting much less than one minute and were achieved on the QWERTY keyboard. Wrona also maintained 174 wpm on a 50-minute test taken on hi-games.net, another online typing website to unofficially displace Blackburn as the fastest endurance typist, although disputes might still arise over differences in the difficulty of the texts as well as Wrona's use of a modern computer keyboard as opposed to the typewriter used by Blackburn. Later, Michael DeRoche had broken Guilherme Sandrini's record at 265.78 wpm on July 2019 TypingZone master (about 318 wpm). Using a personalized interface, physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, managed to type 15 wpm with a switch and adapted software created by Walt Woltosz. Due to a slowdown of his motor skills, his interface was upgraded with an infrared camera that detected twitches in the cheek muscle under the eye. His typing speed decreased to approximately one word per minute in the latter part of his life.