Fact · Typing and writing speed
In an ETS study of eighth-grade students, copy typing was slower and had fewer long pauses than drafting.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“Copy typing was characterized by relatively slow typing, little time spent on long pause behaviors (except between words, when writers would have been scanning the text they were copying)”
Behavioral Differences Between Retyping, Drafting, and Editing: A Writing Process Analysis, Fred Steck et al., ETS Research Memorandum RM-18-06, Educational Testing Service, 2018, Abstract.
Open the original- What it measures
- The copying task asked students to retype an article, so they did not have to think of what to write.
- What it does not show
- The pauses between words were long because students looked back at the source text, so the comparison is about pauses inside composition.