Ask Slashdot: Typing Advice For a Guinness World Record Attempt?

An anonymous reader writes "In fifth grade, I amazed my fellow classmates when I demonstrated what 132 words per minute looked like. Recently, an acquaintance of mine saw me typing out a word document for graduate school and was impressed by my typing abilities. He suggested that I seriously contemplate attempting a Guinness World Record with such abilities. At the moment, I can manage an average of about 155-160 words per minute, with bursts around 180-185 words per minute (in the typing world, five characters defines a word, in case you were wondering). That aside, I have a few questions to pose to Slashdot readers (whom I am sure have been typing much longer than I have): What are some tips to fully maximize one's ability to type at the fastest possible rate? Do you have any specific keyboard recommendations that will improve my speed? Has anybody here ever competed in a typing event or thought about going for the world record? Is it worth learning Dvorak for the sole purpose of attempting such a record? How difficult would it be to improve my typing abilities from where they are now to where they need to be to acquire such a record?"

Bad place to ask

[jfdavis668]

Most /.ers are far from good typists. You can tell by the typos.

Dvorak bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't listen to the people who are invested and have learned to type on Dvoraks: scientific evidence shows that Dvorak is no better than a regular keyboard layout. So you will just be re-training yourself to be unable to type on QWERTY's and type slower on Dvorak's.

Re:Why is this posted AC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never had a Slashdot account, though I've been posting here for years. Your sort of bigotry is not nearly incentive enough.
I've had several dozen +5 first posts over the years, and have made a positive contribution to many discussions.
What does it matter what silly pseudonym is displayed above a good comment, or how many digits are in the number next to it?
Even if the submission is completely made up, the discussion will still be meaningful.

Now on topic: if the submitter's been typing QWERTY mad-fast since fifth grade or before, I find it hard to believe he can do any better with Dvorak.

Confusious Say;...

[flyneye]

- Practice, Practice, Practice- --10,000,000 anonymous piano teachers
- See the ball, be the ball- --Chevy Chase in "Caddyshack"
- Use the force, Luke- --Obiwan Kenobi in , you know, that one show...
- Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be- --Johnny Cash-- "Cocaine Blues"
What can I say, go for the record.
I had a friend, of simple mind and scheming disposition, who in his drifting sought donations to fund his time and sojourn to Ireland to demonstrate for Guinness his ability to bicycle backwards continually. For months he drifted around the country putting on exhibitions and demonstrations of his talent amassing quite a warchest. He traveled to Ireland, pretty much free of charge and being free of responsibility for months in pursuit of his dream. He did then bicycle around the Guinness buildings for 24 hours and change , setting the record. The next week a local Irish held the record. There are no losers in this story. Cheers and Happy Holidays!

I think you're asking the wrong crowd

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I understand why you asked for advice, but I think your reasoning is flawed (ie. your assumption that Slashdotters would know technical stuff about typing). As an IT worker who can type at a good (for an IT guy) rate, my observation is that I am lots faster than most IT people and I am not even close to being fast enough to do secretarial work. Most IT people are terrible at typing. It's not that uncommon to find 2 finger typists in IT. Since a lot of Slashdotters are IT geeks, you're asking the wrong folks to begin with. I'm sure we'll get a few people to post who are the exception to the rule, but again, they are the exceptions.

Dvorak has its detractors and fans. You'll likely get some who swear that only by using it can you achieve your goal and they will possibly cite some studies to back this up. Then others will cite their own studies that show that QWERTY is even faster than Dvorak. I've seen QWERTY vs. Dvorak religious wars here and I doubt that you'll come away convinced of anything.

Re:Bad place to ask

[thereitis]

A problem I find is that my muscle memory is tied to typing computer terms, so I often misspell ordinary words as a similar, computing-related word. I've never progressed past 106wpm (probably not that fast anymore as I've gotten a little sloppy). I can't really imaging 'scaling up' to 160 wpm without making a personal breakthrough on typing efficiency.

Re:Bad place to ask

[QuesarVII]

Or you could be polite and realize it takes a minute to figure something out sometimes, and not demand immediate responses. You should expect a delay in many situations.

Re:Dvorak bad

[QuesarVII]

He already said his native language was dutch. Overall his English was very good. It was much better than the majority of native English speakers.

Don't be a dick.

Re:Bad place to ask

[sco08y]

We use an instant messenger product at work, and the programmers often use it to ask me questions. I will spend about 20-30 seconds to type a 4-6 sentence response. They will take 2 minutes to respond with 4-5 words. BTW, you can see when they are responding, so I know they are typing the entire time.

It's called editing.