Does punctuation change your typing test score?

Punctuation can change your score, for two separate reasons. First, most tests count every character in the text, punctuation included, so a comma adds to the count like a letter does. Second, some punctuation and capitals need extra key presses, such as Shift, and those presses take time without adding a character. The score moves in whichever direction the net effect pushes it. We did not find a controlled study that measures that net effect, so the size of the change for any one typist is unknown.

This answer covers how standard tests count punctuation, why text changes timing, and how to compare scores fairly. For the wider rules behind every score, see the guide to how typing speed is measured.

Standard tests count punctuation as characters

The usual definition of a word for speed scoring is five characters, and the count includes spaces and punctuation. MacKenzie's text entry definition states this directly ¹. TypingTest.com says most typing tests use a word equal to five typed characters ². Under that rule, a dictionary word is not what gets counted. A typed character is.

A free symbols test on TypeQuicker follows the same calculation as its standard tests, and it says each special character counts toward the overall character count ³. On that test, punctuation therefore enters the score the same way letters do. The same logic applies to the commas and full stops in an ordinary sentence test.

One consequence matters for comparison. Two tests can use the same five-character word and still give different scores at the same typing rate, because the text sets how many characters each second produces. The unit is the same, but the text behind it is not.

Punctuation can raise the count and still slow you down

Think of the score as characters typed per unit of time. A mark you type adds one character to the count. If typing it takes no extra time, your score rises slightly. If it needs a Shift press or a move to a symbol key, you spend extra time, and the score can fall.

The claim that punctuation slows typing is common. TypeQuicker says that punctuation often requires Shift combinations and symbols that slow typing flow, and it uses that reason to offer a punctuation-free test ⁴. That is a vendor's reasoning, and its page gives no measurements. We did not find a peer-reviewed study that times punctuation and capitals against plain letters in a typing test, so this stays a plausible claim rather than a measured one.

Shift is a technique question too. Ratatype's touch typing tips say the Shift key is always pressed by the pinky of the hand opposite the one that types the other key ⁵. That habit keeps the typing hand in place, so a capital letter or symbol does not force a reach.

Text changes timing, so a different text is a different test

Typing speed is not the same for every string of characters. In a crowd-sourced study, keystroke timing correlated with the letter, bigram and trigram frequencies of English text ⁶. The way keys follow one another in the text is linked to how fast you type them.

A no-punctuation test changes that text. TypeQuicker describes its no-punctuation test as a measure of letter speed on text with only letters and spaces. Its score therefore reflects a different sequence of keys from a sentence with commas and full stops. It can be a useful practice tool, but its number belongs to its own test.

What to do

1. Check the test's text and rules. Look for a punctuation setting, a symbols option or a FAQ that says how words are counted. If the site does not say, assume that punctuation counts toward the score.
2. Compare like with like. Use the same test, the same length and the same punctuation setting when you track progress. A standard score and a no-punctuation score are different measures.
3. Match the text to your work. Letters and business email have ordinary punctuation. Coding and data entry use many symbols. Practice on text that looks like the work you will do, and if a job names a test, use that test's text.
4. Learn the Shift habit. Press Shift with the opposite pinky, and keep your hand in place, so that capitals and symbols cost as little time as possible.
5. Read the error rules too. Check whether the test scores net or gross, because that decides how much a mistyped symbol costs your number. The question on gross and net WPM explains the difference.

It depends on the test and the text

Whether punctuation changes your score depends on three things. The first is the test's word rule. The second is the text: ordinary sentences, code, numbers or symbols each give different keystroke patterns. The third is your own skill with Shift and symbol keys. A fluent typist with practiced Shift technique may see little change, while a typist who hunts for symbols may see a large one. The data we found do not say how large the typical change is, so measure it yourself on two texts of the same length.

For how a score is calculated from the keystrokes, see the question on how words per minute is calculated. For what counts as a good score once you have one, see the question on whether 50 words per minute is good.