Improving Accuracy

[Danegraphics]

So, what I want to do is improve my accuracy when it comes to hitting the letters on my keyboard.

As I have explained before, I am quite sloppy with my fingers, perhaps because of some physical ailment, perhaps not, but either way, I hope that I can get my fingers to cooperate and hit the keys that I want them to hit.

I already use touch typing without looking at the keyboard, and I already have a good average speed of around 70 WPM, and have had this for about 6 years. The problem comes when I compare that speed to my speed without the corrections that I need to make due to sloppy aim. Without corrections, I can achieve average speeds up to 110 WPM (sometimes I can even reach 140 WPM in spurts). That's double what I can do now without the corrections. The corrections take a moment to recognize, so I have to pause, reach up, hit the delete key, and then move back down to hit the correct key. It's worse if I made a mistake mid-word and I have to delete much of the word before I can correct it.

So here's my question. How do you guys practice the accuracy of your fingers while touch typing?

I have personally used the advanced test to get my fingers used to finding letters in odd combinations so that I can build the habit of hitting those letters correctly on a frequent basis. But that doesn't seem to work as it still doesn't focus specifically on accuracy. I have also just practiced typing the letters on their own from the standard position, practicing both fingers for the keys that depend on the word being typed. I started doing that about a week ago, and so far it has had little noticeable effect.

Do you guys have any suggestions for how to improve my accuracy practice, or different accuracy practice methods that I could use?

[Stephen Athon]

I would like to give a technical detailed answer, but I don't know of one.

I think that a good deal of the right kind of practice is all that can help. Focus on training your brain, not necessarily your fingers. If you think accurately, your fingers will operate accurately. I find that some of my fastest typing tests have not been the ones in which I try to move my fingers quickly, but the ones which I begin carefully and demand good accuracy.

At the same time, you cannot become preoccupied with accuracy, since typing efficiently on 10fastfingers.com requires that you sometimes ignore mistakes and move on.

You could try slowing down and find that threshold you have where you can type with near perfect accuracy. As you practice at a lower WPM (perhaps 30% slower than your top speed) you will gradually become better and faster. Then slowly raise the bar.

[Danegraphics]

I would like to give a technical detailed answer, but I don't know of one.

I think that a good deal of the right kind of practice is all that can help. Focus on training your brain, not necessarily your fingers. If you think accurately, your fingers will operate accurately. I find that some of my fastest typing tests have not been the ones in which I try to move my fingers quickly, but the ones which I begin carefully and demand good accuracy.

At the same time, you cannot become preoccupied with accuracy, since typing efficiently on 10fastfingers.com requires that you sometimes ignore mistakes and move on.

You could try slowing down and find that threshold you have where you can type with near perfect accuracy. As you practice at a lower WPM (perhaps 30% slower than your top speed) you will gradually become better and faster. Then slowly raise the bar.

This makes a lot of sense. I've noticed that my fastest times are the times where my hands are totally relaxed, almost totally ignored and put into autopilot mode. It's rather interesting that it has that effect.

As for typing slower, I've tried practicing while typing slower and have found that my hands are really, really uncomfortable with certain key positions and combinations (for example the "x" key, or the combination "cr") and it makes it hard to type that way, especially for my left hand. So when I'm practicing slowly, my left hand starts to cramp up a lot and goes almost numb. Because of this I've had to modify the positioning of some combinations to accommodate my left hand (like using the first finger for 'c' and second finger for 'r'). So I do practice typing slower, I just don't enjoy it because it hurts to do.

As for ignoring mistakes, I find it impractical in real life use and quite annoying if I make a mistake, leave it, and have to go back to correct it later. I always fix my mistakes right as they happen so I don't have to worry about proofreading (which I'd have to do a lot of).

Anyway, that's the situation I'm in. I did find a good site (http://www.keybr.com/) for typing practice that really forces you to type correctly, and keeps stats of exactly what you're good at, what you miss, what you hesitate at, and it uses this data to choose what you should practice. It's really cool. I've been using it a lot and learning a ton about the things that I need to work on in order to improve my typing speed.

So I found something at least.

[Stephen Athon]

Thanks for the kind words, I hope that some of my thoughts can be useful!

Great link, I had not been to that site before. I am a little puzzled at first trying to understand its exact usefulness. But I think it is able to show me which letters I am weak on. Have a 468 wpm top speed for the letter "W"! But my "Q" is only 68wpm. Made 185wpm on one of the tests, but it looks like the difficulty is changeable, making wpm somewhat irrelevant. I am confused still about the "High Scores" list - as I don't understand what it takes to achieve a high score (they did not type very fast at all). It could be that they typed super lengthy texts?

[Danegraphics]

I am confused still about the "High Scores" list - as I don't understand what it takes to achieve a high score (they did not type very fast at all). It could be that they typed super lengthy texts?

It look's like it's everything (speed, accuracy, text length, character complexity, etc.), according to the High Scores page:

"Typing score is measured from typing speed, sample length, number of different characters in the sample and number of errors."

I imagine you also have to be logged in.

[SilverStarFour]

I personally have seen quite a lot of improvement by using this site so far... there's a few things that did help my accuracy though, other than just drilling practice over and over on this website. I used to be a slop mess whenever I'd type on Microsoft Word, etc. Allowing Microsoft Word to fix my spelling mistakes and capitalization that I disregarded due to the fact that I needed to type something fast and fix mistakes later. This was definitely bad practice on my part.

When I do typing tests, I take a break before starting one just to make sure I'm not tensed up in my fingers and arms, because this causes muscle tiredness if I don't and I see a dip in WPM over time. For some reason my best scores are first ones (usually the VERY first one of the day) that I get after I log in and start a test. Usually I hit high WPM and accuracy in the mornings when I'm awake and alert. This is because my fingers are not as tensed up from so much typing, I would guess. Then at night time, after typing all day long at work and such, and being tired and having not much sleep, I tend to do much worse on typing tests.

There's other things I have done to help improve my accuracy though. I started using different finger placement for certain words like "human," etc. Instead of the index finger as most people would typically use for the letter "u," I would use my middle finger instead to type that letter because I tend to hit it faster and more accurately with that. Most people would use their index finger for "h" and then quickly hit "u" with it, which is really difficult for me to do when trying to get >130 wpm on any typing website. This is really one of the biggest factors for improving accuracy in my opinion. Try to find what is most comfortable for you. The main point I'd like to make here is that the more finger alternating you use (i.e., not using the same finger twice in a row), the more accurate you will be.

Other problems could be the keyboard you are using. I noticed that I type awfully slow and inaccurate when using a QWERTY keyboard with keys that are difficult to press. The keyboard on my laptop has flat keys, which helps WPM but decreases accuracy. When I press the spacebar, I only get lucky if it responds the way it's supposed to. Meanwhile the keyboard I use for my desktop computer has raised keys (just a traditional Logitech keyboard) but the keys take a lot more effort to press. Good for accuracy, but sometimes bad for WPM due to the amount of muscle that you have to use to press the keys.

Additionally, FOCUSING on what is on your computer screen helps you considerably. Look at each word, and KNOW what that word is. Don't confuse it with other words. Words like "from" and "form" are easy to mix up and mistake if you're trying to type fast. If you're lucky, you'll get into the "zone" while you're typing, and breeze right through a test with impeccable accuracy by holding your focus on each word at a time. Try not to skip words and type the wrong one or hit the spacebar twice (which is typically something that happens far too often for me). If you can make use of two thumbs on the spacebar, that might actually help (though I wish I could learn how to do that).

But yeah, these are my tips that I've learned over the many years I've been practicing my typing. I hope they help!

~ SilverStarFour

[monotheist]

Gorgeous
i am very glad to know that they are discussion about the accuracy so it is necessary in every field of life this thread will give me more information about our weakness

[toddhicks209]

You are already super good. If you're typing 70 or more words per minute, you're rarely going to have to go back and fix errors. Nobody is perfect and once you reach an elite level, there's only so much you can do to get better.

[toddhicks209]

You can spend anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour practicing typing per day to reach the level you want. The amount of time you spend should depend on how good you already are and how much spare time you have. I used to spend about half an hour to an hour doing typing exercises almost each day. Now I just spend about 10 minutes doing it every few days.

[nazmulph]

I personally have seen quite a lot of improvement by using this site so far... there's a few things that did help my accuracy though, other than just drilling practice over and over on this website. I used to be a slop mess whenever I'd type on Microsoft Word, etc. Allowing Microsoft Word to fix my spelling mistakes and capitalization that I disregarded due to the fact that I needed to type something fast and fix mistakes later. This was definitely bad practice on my part.

When I do typing tests, I take a break before starting one just to make sure I'm not tensed up in my fingers and arms, because this causes muscle tiredness if I don't and I see a dip in WPM over time. For some reason my best scores are first ones (usually the VERY first one of the day) that I get after I log in and start a test. Usually I hit high WPM and accuracy in the mornings when I'm awake and alert. This is because my fingers are not as tensed up from so much typing, I would guess. Then at night time, after typing all day long at work and such, and being tired and having not much sleep, I tend to do much worse on typing tests.

There's other things I have done to help improve my accuracy though. I started using different finger placement for certain words like "human," etc. Instead of the index finger as most people would typically use for the letter "u," I would use my middle finger instead to type that letter because I tend to hit it faster and more accurately with that. Most people would use their index finger for "h" and then quickly hit "u" with it, which is really difficult for me to do when trying to get >130 wpm on any typing website. This is really one of the biggest factors for improving accuracy in my opinion. Try to find what is most comfortable for you. The main point I'd like to make here is that the more finger alternating you use (i.e., not using the same finger twice in a row), the more accurate you will be.

Other problems could be the keyboard you are using. I noticed that I type awfully slow and inaccurate when using a QWERTY keyboard with keys that are difficult to press. The keyboard on my laptop has flat keys, which helps WPM but decreases accuracy. When I press the spacebar, I only get lucky if it responds the way it's supposed to. Meanwhile the keyboard I use for my desktop computer has raised keys (just a traditional Logitech keyboard) but the keys take a lot more effort to press. Good for accuracy, but sometimes bad for WPM due to the amount of muscle that you have to use to press the keys.

Additionally, FOCUSING on what is on your computer screen helps you considerably. Look at each word, and KNOW what that word is. Don't confuse it with other words. Words like "from" and "form" are easy to mix up and mistake if you're trying to type fast. If you're lucky, you'll get into the "zone" while you're typing, and breeze right through a test with impeccable accuracy by holding your focus on each word at a time. Try not to skip words and type the wrong one or hit the spacebar twice (which is typically something that happens far too often for me). If you can make use of two thumbs on the spacebar, that might actually help (though I wish I could learn how to do that).

But yeah, these are my tips that I've learned over the many years I've been practicing my typing. I hope they help!

~ SilverStarFour

Thanking you for a valuable information.