Question · Typing and writing speed
Should you aim for typing speed or accuracy first?
Build accuracy first, then raise your speed in small steps while your errors stay under a limit you set. Across people, faster typists make fewer errors, and each correction costs time, so careful typing usually pays off. Speed comes first only when you are already accurate or when a test scores speed alone.
Updated October 17, 20264 min read10 cited facts, each traced to its source
For most people, aim for accuracy first and add speed after. The two usually rise together across typists, because every error has to be found and fixed, and that repair takes time. Once your errors are low and steady, you can push speed in small steps and watch the error rate as you go.
The exceptions are real, and they depend on how your typing is scored and what it is for. The sections below cover why accuracy pays, where the two trade off, and what to do in each case. For how each score is worked out, see the guide to how typing speed is measured.
Errors cost time, so accuracy usually pays
Slow typing and errors tend to come together. In a large keystroke study from Aalto University, the lead researchers say slower typists make more errors and need a long time to find and correct them 1. The problem is the search and the repair, not the single wrong key.
The 2018 online study of 136 million keystrokes shows the same pattern across people. Faster typing was negatively correlated with uncorrected errors (r = -0.21) and with error corrections (r = -0.36) 2. Slow typists also left significantly more errors uncorrected than fast typists, and the authors suggest they may detect their own mistakes less well 3.
These are correlations between people, not a test of one person typing faster or slower. They show that faster typists in the sample made fewer errors and fewer corrections. They do not show that a careless person would become fast by ignoring errors.
Within one session, speed can cost accuracy
The trade-off is clearer inside a single person's day. In an office study of real working typists, workers kept their typing speed up in the morning and, as a result, made more errors to correct 4. Across the working day, typing speed and accuracy both declined 5. So pushing speed at one moment can mean more repair work later, and fatigue lowers both numbers over a long session.
A computational model of expert typists on phone keyboards with autocorrect points to the same place from another side. The authors found that typists' aversion to typing errors adds a self-imposed limit on upper bound typing speeds 6. In other words, a typist who avoids every error slows down on purpose, and that caution can cap speed. This is a model of phone typing, so treat it as a sign of the mechanism, not a measure of your own speed.
It depends on how the score and the job treat errors
The right order depends on the rules you will be judged by.
| Situation | What to aim for first | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Learning to type for the first time | Accuracy | A clean baseline tells you what speed really means |
| A test scored by net speed | Both, together | Net scores count only correct words, so each error is already priced in 7 |
| A job with a fixed accuracy bar | Speed within the bar | The NCRA court reporting skills test sets a floor of 95 percent accuracy 8 |
| Already accurate, speed is the limit | Speed, in small steps | Keep errors at your limit while you raise the pace |
| Using autocorrect or word prediction | Test your own error rate | Autocorrect changes how much an error costs, so the usual rule bends |
Net scoring deserves a closer look. Under the CBSE typing formula, net words are the correct words typed, so incorrect words earn nothing in the net score 7. If your target test uses net words, accuracy is already part of the number you are chasing. If it reports gross speed and accuracy separately, you have to watch both. The question on gross and net WPM explains the difference in more detail.
What to do: an order for practice
- Set an error limit you can live with. Pick a figure, such as 95 percent accuracy, and use it as the line you do not cross. The NCRA court reporting test uses that level, so it is a sensible starting point 8.
- Find a speed you can hold under that limit. Use a test with the same length and scoring as the one you will be judged on.
- Raise speed in small steps. Move up only when errors stay at or below your limit for several sessions. The steps are set out in the question on how to type faster without mistakes.
- Check accuracy at the end of each session. Because accuracy falls late in the day, a late-session score can mislead you about your steady rate 5.
- Stop looking at the keys. The Aalto researchers name this as an important goal for typing 9. In a transcription study, typists without touch-typing training spent about 40 percent of their copying time looking at the keyboard 10. The guide to touch typing covers the method.
When speed should come first
Speed-first is the better choice in a few cases. If you are already accurate and your pace is the only limit, you should push speed, keeping the error rate in view. If a test or job scores only raw speed, the errors still cost time to fix, but the score will not show them. Choose the order that matches the number you are measured on.
For a sense of what typical speeds look like, see the guide to good typing speed. For the most reliable test to measure your progress, see the question on the most accurate typing speed test.
Evidence
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