Typing Skills - How Good/Bad Are Yours?!
May 1st, 2008 at 12:15 pm by Dee O'Neil Andrews
I've been thinking about this question since receiving a lovely first time email note from a long time, loyal reader from the Dallas area a couple of days ago. She had taught keyboarding and computer skills for years, including teaching students to "write" on a computer keyboard and said that she admired my ability to be able to do so.
That was a first for me, I'll tell ya! Actually, I thought it was pretty cool because Mrs. Forbes, my typing teacher in Abernathy High, would probably roll over in her grave at finding that out about me.
You see - I signed up for typing class and just stayed in the class long enough to learn how to type using the - whatever - method they teach in typing. In other words, I learned where to place my hands on the keys and how to type the correct way, where you learn to type without thinking about it. I wasn't very good when I dropped out, but I knew enough and certainly didn't want to stay in there and learn all of the secretarial stuff like where to place the envelope when typing the to/from stuff and how to do business letters.
As fate would have it, I did tons of stuff like that much later in life as a law clerk and attorney, but by then it was all done on computers, which made it super easy once you got the hang of it. I got to be a whiz on Word Perfect (which I still use, only rarely making the foray over into Microsoft Word).
I used other word processing systems for writing over the years as well, in all of my different professions (see my resume above to check all of those out), including being a journalist and attorney.
My reader friend from Texas said that a lot of students of hers have trouble learning how to compose on a computer keyboard. I found that interesting, because I don't know that I ever had any trouble trying to compose on either a typewriter or a computer keyboard. How about you guys? Any of you (ever) have trouble trying to compose on the keyboard sitting in front of your computer?
She also asked me how fast I type. I really have no clue, but pretty fast. But, I also make some mistakes in typing and have to go back regularly to correct them as I'm typing. At least, the ones that spell check doesn't pick up in most word processing computer systems.
One word that I misspell nearly always, and which has really plagued me over the years is the word "the." I nearly always am typing along really fast and hit "hte" automatically without thinking about it. I then have to go back and correct it, unless in Word Perfect or Word, which corrects it for me as I type along, which is a great boon.
So - my typing questions for you today are:
1) Do you know the "correct" typing method or are you more of a hunt and peck kind of typer?
2) How fast do you type? Have you ever had it timed?
3) Are there certain words that you misspell all the time because you are typing to fast you don't think about it?
Comment and share your typing skills with me so I won't feel so bad about some of my own, okay?!? You know . . . I really wonder, and maybe some of you "younger" readers can answer this, how kids these days learn how to type the "correct" method that I learned on manual typewriters on their computer keyboards? I mean, kids start many times when they are really little and I'm wondering how they ever learn to type very well.
Then there is the new problem of texting. Apparently, it is showing up in an adverse way in school in writing assignments in various classes, including, but not limited to, English. Any thoughts on that?
Let's hear it from all you typists out there, and you all are, or else you wouldn't be blogging and commenting! So, that includes all of you!
Cheers & Blessings to you all today! Dee
I took typing in high school on an electric typewriter, one of those big IBM machines. I type correctly (no hunt and peck) I am not sure how fast I type but probably 60+ words a minute. I don’t believe I have any problems composing on the computer vs typewriter. I personally love text messaging because it enables me to use the phone more, since I am limited by my hearing loss. There is a lot of jargon involved because it takes too long to write everything out on the keypad of a phone. Your thumbs get sore too! So there is my two cents worth for today! C U L8r! (See you later–in text msg)
Yse, I ues hte corerct metohd fro typnig and cna tyep as fsat as 100wpm wiht veyr fwe mistkaes.
Oh yes, I also compose on the word processor but it never sounds quite the same as it does on my keyboards at home. Go figure??
For years, I have used word processing (sorry, but I’m a MSWord guy) as a way of helping me think through and organize sermons. Far better than the old typewriter or legal (sorry) notepad.
I learned to type beginning on the old upright Royal manual typewriters, the ones they would cover the keys with little metal thingys. That was to make you learn to type by “feel” and not by looking at the letters. That was in 1965/66. By the next year when I graduated, we had some electric typewriters.
After the first six weeks’, I loved it. During that first six weeks, though, I went home crying every day, begging my mother to let me quit. She told me if I’d hang with it ’til the semester ended, if I still hated it, I could drop out. By then, I’d forgotten hating it. I ended up spending my entire adult life at a keyboard of some kind……….and am still there.
I’ve had a number of typing tests through the years. Accuracy is pretty good, and I think my best recorded speed was somewhere between 80 and 90 wpm.
No trouble composing or thinking while clacking on the keys. At least, I don’t think so!!
Joy to you and yours!!
Typewriter? What’s that???
J/k…I remember those…I think my grandpa had one that I used to play on when I was a kid!
When I was in junior high, I lived in Arkansas, and was required to take a semester of keyboarding in the 8th grade. The very next school year, we moved back to Texas, where the semester I took in 8th grade didn’t count for anything, and I was required to take another year in the 9th grade. (I had already learned to type in the 8th grade class.) My sophomore year, my high school changed the graduation requirements, only requring a semester, rather than a whole year, of keyboarding, for graduation.
So, in essence, i was bored outta my mind for THREE semester of keyboarding, when I only ended up needing ONE to graduate!!!
However, as a result, I type really quickly, sometimes up to 100 wpm. I don’t know if there are any particular words that I always misspell…but alot of the time i get lazy and don’t capitalize everything that I should.
I had two years typing in highschool and one year in college. I learned on manual and electric typewriters. It has been a while since I have been timed. Last time was after a few years where I was pretty rusty and then it was about 55 I think. Think it is a bit better than that now. I type a LOT on one job and just use a cash register keyboard on the other. I often find that “the” ends up as “hte”. It has to be because our left hand just doesn’t get the “t” hit as quickly as our right hand does the “h”. Are you right handed? Who has the time luxury to compose with pen and paper then merely type it?
I learned to type in high school. We took turns using the computers and typewriters. I believe the word processor was WordStar. I type the “correct” way, but am not as good with the numbers and symbols at the top. Back then, I believe I typed between 40-60 wpm. I have no idea how fast I am now, but don’t think I’m more slow, since I have worked as a programmer and used to type all day.
I am painfully slow at texting because I don’t do it much. I think it has its place, but think kids should be able to write in clear English, too.
I’ve always said the single most useful class I have ever taken was 9th grade typing. We started on manuals, and had two electrics up at the front of the classroom that you had to work up to getting to use. My mom typed term papers and theses for college students in our dining room, so I was always around a typewriter, and was always fascinated by them. By the end of that 9th grade year of typing I was typing 90 wpm (faster, but you had to deduct for mistakes). And I have typed constantly since then, so I’ve probably kept or increased the speed.
Computers and word processing were made for the way I think and compose - in fact, I’ve gotten to where I can’t think and compose with pen and paper anymore - I have to be on a computer to compose. (If I want to decompose - now that’s another matter!)
And the one word I consistently mispell because of fumbled fingers is Christ, which 70% of the times comes out Chirst (before auto-spell corrects it). Yay for computers!
Does it seem ironic that I would misspell “misspell”?
I know the correct typing method but never really gleaned my typing skills till the computer and windows came out! I am a really fast typer but would be typing Greek if it weren’t for spell check as my mistakes per minute are probably more than my actual words typed!
I don’t text much but my brother told me that I should probably just stick to the using the phone!
1. The slow but classic method.
2. Don’t know but I’m sure it’s not very fast.
3. That would probably be about every other word.
don’t type that much ya know that
huggs
I learned how to type when I was in fifth grade. My dad had a bunch of 45s from Smith Corona — a “learn at home” typing course. I decided to teach myself and did so on an old “punch the key hard enough to crack a walnut” manual portable that weighed about thirty pounds. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself.
Now I type around 90wpm and don’t make that many mistakes. I love that MS Word has help with spelling but don’t care for its grammar tips since I write so much dialog and dialog usually isn’t grammatically perfect.