What is your WPM (word per minute)?

just a curious little question, what is your word per minute? I am currently on a tablet, so my writing speed I significantly lower and with significantly more mistakes. But I achieved a 76 wpm on typingtest.com

What about you?

 

Last time I tested, I was 110--on a regular keyboard.

 

Nice. I wonder what mine is on a regular keyboard, probably around the 100+ mark judging from my typing speed on the tablet.

 

'bout 7.

 

While doing a writing test: usually around 90 wpm.
While writing stuff in general: probably a little bit lower.
While actually writing fiction: far, far lower (I spend more time thinking than writing).

 

I consistently measure about 50 on typing tests. That is on a physical keyboard. I feel as though I type faster than that when I put down what's in my head rather than the things dictated on screen.

Edit: I see that the test you've linked to functions differently than the ones I've tried, which presents you with a continuous stream of random words. I'll have to give it a try when I get to a keyboard.

This test gave me 52 WPM using my mobile.

I reached another link from my computer, which is weird. Anyway, this test gave me a WPM of 59, or 54 after adjusting for errors. A slight improvement from before, where I would get 49-51 WPM. Maybe my new keyboard is actually making a difference.

 

The last test I took I got 44. he highest I've ever gotten was 60. That being said I type faster when I'm typing something from my own head than one a test.

 

My typing speed was 20 WPM a couple of years ago when I first started learning typing. I have now improved my typing speed to 99 WPM by regular practice!

 

My highest on 10fastfingers is 134WPM.
My highest average on Typeracer, writing full sentences from an excerpt, is 114WPM.
I do typing tests almost every day. I used to have a 10fastfingers account which had about 700 tests on it, and that was only the ones I completed.

 

Mine hangs between seven and twelve depending on what I am working on. It would probably be faster if I was better at typing, buy I'm not. I actually type faster on my Kindle Fire then my Chromebook. I also use a lot of voice to text, which messes with the WPM.

 

Just took the test at the link above and got 114 WPM at 99% accuracy. It says the average person types 36 WPM, is that true? That seems quite slow. Maybe a lot of people who are just learning take that test, and that's what they base their average on?

Googling around briefly yields some different numbers, but not that much higher. 41 WPM seems to be a commonly-cited average figure.

Or maybe it's an age thing--I'm an older Millenial and my family got our first desktop computer when I was 12 (IIRC), and I've been typing pretty much every day since then. I assume Gen Xers and older came to it at a later age and maybe that makes a difference?

 

Those are probably people who never learned how to type properly, who use one finger or 2 but haven't memorized the key positions, so they have to hunt & peck.

 

I use two fingers on each hand. Those fingers hop around as needed. I know where everything is on the keyboard, can type phrases without looking down, and my hands usually manage to stay on their respective sides of the keyboard. My proudest typing moment came when an accomplished typist watched me work a minute then commented, "You type faster that way than anyone I've ever seen." Don't know what my average would be on a typing test. Typing tests make me want to throw up even when I'm taking one just for fun. PTSD left over from summer school typing class circa 1972? It was one of the three most dreadful classes I ever endured, matched only by agricultural economics and organic chemistry.

 

Just to say, you don't need to learn home row or another system to type fast. I have this very idiosyncratic way of typing with only a few fingers and it's basically impossible for me to get below about 105. Lot of keyboard use since an early age though. A lot.

 

I'm sure you don't, just typing a lot can allow you to memorize all the key positions. Same as a person can learn things about writing without ever cracking a book, just by reading and writing a lot. Osmosis is real yo!

Of course it's also possible to pick up or reinforce bad habits that way.

 

Might as well show this. The left is Typeracer and the right is 10fastfingers. As said, I used to have a 10fastfingers account which had about 700 tests completed, but it was linked to FB. I deleted FB (good riddance) but my account went with it... I've only had this new account since 2020.

 

This is a bit off-topic now, but just wanted to say that, although I consider myself a pretty well-informed, generally curious, and open to new experiences sort of person, o-chem is the one field of knowledge I absolutely refuse to learn anything about. Might as well be the Necronomicon, as far as I'm concerned.

 

36 WPM is probably faster than hunting and pecking. That's about what I did in high school in typing class and we were beyond the hunt and peck stages at that point. But, you could only have three mistakes for the test or it didn't count at all, and you had to type a specific page. People can probably do better if they are typing something they've already drafted in their mind and can correct mistakes. This was with real typewriters and when doing assignments you had to use those whiteout ink sheets to correct errors (not practical or allowed during tests).

I wonder how much keyboards and the ability to backspace improve typing speed relative to typewriters. Supposedly L. Ron Hubbard could type over 100 WPM with one hand but he may have had 'assistance'.

But the thing that I'm more interested in is words per hour for creative writing, which I understand averages about 200-400 for most people.

 

Does that take into account that you aren't copying anything, but have to keep stopping and thinking as you go? That's a much more realistic scenario for the way we normally type. I mean, I can understand wanting to get your WPM really high so you can keep up with those sudden bursts of inspiration, but that isn't the way you're mostly going to be typing.

 

That's an interesting stat...I'm trying to recollect how fast I went during my last stretch of my WIP. I think it may have been close to that, or a little higher--maybe 500 WPH? But that was for a first draft where I didn't stop to think too much and focused on just powering through.

How does one calculate a stat like that? Seems like it would vary a lot even for an individual, depending on how inspired they were/what stage of the writing/editing process they were at.

 

For me it wasn't a matter of refusing to learn, it was absolute inability to make sense of anything that was being said. At some point, the proff rattled off a bunch of stuff and I asked how he'd come to that conclusion: what was the process, what were the steps, what was the formula. He shrugged and said, "You just have to know." Following that unhelpful piece of information, I simply gave up, listened to the lectures without understanding them, scribbled a bunch of half-intelligible answers on the tests and managed to pass the class with one of the only two Cs I got in almost twenty years of formal education.

 

To practice typing, I prefer online typing test sites. My daily routine includes writing one story, as I believe about the importance of key words in remembering them. Additionally, I play online typing games.

 

Apparently that is the most prevalent problem we all have. I don't think it necessarily means dyslexia, it's just about transposing one letter in front of the other. At least at times it's more a matter of one hand getting in a little too fast (or too slow). Once you understand this (assuming it's your main problem as it is mine) corrections get a lot easier and faster. My froms and forms are always reversed for instance. Most of my misspelled words just mean finding which 2 letters are reversed and fixing it. It often involves the space bar and periods.