Fact · Typing and writing speed
In a keystroke study of writing, the time between key presses differed significantly at commas and at full stops compared with ordinary word boundaries, with the gaps shortest between words and longest at full stops.
Checked against its source on October 17, 2026
In the source's own words
“Results provide evidence of significant differences between interkey durations between words, at commas and at full stops (from shortest to longest)”
Prosodic Boundaries in Writing: Evidence from a Keystroke Analysis, Susanne Fuchs and Jelena Krivokapić, Frontiers in Psychology, 2016, Abstract.
Open the original (DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01678)- What it measures
- Participants wrote an email while their keystrokes were recorded. The authors compared the time between keys at punctuation with the pauses the same speakers made when reading aloud, and they read the difference as a marker of phrasing.
- What it does not show
- One writing task, not a typing test, and only commas and full stops were studied. It does not measure capitals, symbols or numbers, and it does not say how much a punctuation mark changes a words-per-minute score.