If you’ve gotten into the habit of typing all lower case or worse, all upper case, you really should break this habit. Using mixed case when touch typing is grammatically correct, and gives your typed material a more polished and professional look. Even casual typists should do this. Capital letters should always be used at the beginning of each new sentence or question. Capital letters should also be used with abbreviations and acronyms, proper names and titles, the days of the week and months, cities and countries, movie, poem, song and book titles, and some brand names. There are other examples of capitalization usage, but these are the most common.

When typing, letters appear in lower case by default. If there is a situation where you need to type a series of upper case letters, you simply toggle the [Caps Lock] key on and off as needed. On a QWERTY keyboard, the [Caps Lock] key is located to the left of the letter A. Press once to turn [Caps Lock] on and all of the letters you type will be capitalized. Press the [Caps Lock] key again to turn this feature off.

However, when you only want to capitalize a single letter, or the first letter of a word, the [Shift] key is more appropriate. The [Shift] key also serves another purpose. Looking at the keyboard, you’ll see that most non-letter keys have dual purposes. For example, above the number 1 is an exclamation point, and a colon is above the semicolon. When you need to type an exclamation point, colon, or any of the other symbols or punctuation marks on the top of these dual purpose keys, you must also press the [Shift] key.

You’ll notice there are two [Shift] keys on the Bottom Row of the keyboard. One is to the left of the Z key and the other is to the right of the slash/question mark key. When touch typing, you press the [Shift] key with the little finger of the hand that is on the opposite side of the keyboard from the key you need.

In other words, to type an exclamation point, you will press and hold down the [Shift] key with your right-hand little finger while you press the exclamation point with your left-hand little finger. While this happens, your other fingers should remain on the appropriate home row keys.

Letters and punctuation make up the bulk of keys used by most touch typists. However, there will be times when you’ll need to type numbers. When you do, you have two choices. You can use the row of numbers located above the Top Row of letters, or you can use the numeric keypad, located on the right side of the keyboard. Feel free to choose whichever is faster and easier to use.

As always, you will start with your fingers in the appropriate positions on the Home Row. Then, when you want to type a number, you’ll stretch the appropriate finger up to the number and press. You’ll do this while leaving as many of your other fingers on the Home Row keys as possible. Sound difficult? It won’t be once you get used to these exaggerated finger movements. Like the Top Row and Bottom Row keys, proper touch typing requires that each number be pressed by a specific finger. The exercises and accompanying videos that cover this topic in the Typesy software system will help you remember these important finger-number-key relationships.

Many symbols are also found on the top row of the keyboard, the ones that share keys with numbers. Now, what’s interesting about these symbols is that they are used only occasionally. In fact, these symbols take up less than 1% of most text. Because of their infrequency of use, most touch typists do not actually touch type these symbols. Some do what you’ve been told you should never do: they look at the keyboard.

Not touch typing these symbols is okay because doing so will only have a negligible impact on your typing speed. When you continually look at the keyboard when typing letters, the time loss is significantly greater. If you want to become a proficient touch typist, you do need to know where these symbols are located on the keyboard. As you touch type symbols, it’s important to use the same finger as you do when typing the respective numbers. When typing a symbol, remember that you have to press and hold down the appropriate [Shift] key with the other hand before pressing the symbol key.

Being able to type will help you get a job, but once you have that job you need to keep it and, if possible, advance in your field and career. One of the best ways of ensuring that you’re always in mind for promotion is to be extremely efficient. If you’ve ever stayed late at work to finish up a task, you know how valuable extra time is. Well, if you’re an excellent typist, the time you save with that skill can give you 10 “extra” minutes – at a minimum – to devote to other things. In fact, some estimates put the time saved by expert typing skills at over two hours every day! Just think of what you could do with two full hours of additional productivity.

To get those expert skills once you’re familiar with keyboard basics, you can concentrate on building your touch typing speed and accuracy. Typesy’s Speed Building Course and Accuracy Building Course don’t take long to complete, and they are an excellent way to quickly improve speed and accuracy. The courses are made up of several computer generated activities accompanied by instructions that guide you through the steps. All you have to do is follow along. You can repeat the courses as many times as you like; each time you complete them your speed and accuracy will improve.

If you’re already a practiced touch typist, and want to focus on speed and/or accuracy, Typesy accommodates your learning needs as well. Its Advanced Typing Course is actually a collection of six mini-courses that focus on developing specific touch typing skills. These mini courses use more difficult words and focus on developing automatic proficiency when typing vowels combinations and diphthongs, uncommon consonants, short but difficult words, words with doubled letters, common phrases, and practice with prefixes and suffixes.

In each of these mini-courses, you’ll learn and practice many of the key combinations you’ll likely encounter while touch typing. For example, the exercises in the “vowels” course cover the vowel combinations A-I and O-U, plus several other common combinations. In the advanced typing course on consonants, you’ll practice typing words that begin with or include frequently-occurring consonant blends such as C-H, N-T, and others.

Believe it or not, although there are over 60 keys on the typical QWERTY keyboard, you’ll find you frequently use just a fraction of them when you type. Think about it. Very few words begin with or include the letters Z, Q, X or V. But there are lots of words that include the G-H-T consonant blend, like “night.” Plus, nearly every word you type will include at least one vowel.

Because you’ll touch type certain letter combinations more than others, it makes sense to get more practice typing words that include the more frequently used letter combinations. And that is exactly what the six Advanced Typing mini-courses are designed to help you do.

When you allocate sufficient time to practice the exercises included in these Advanced Typing Courses, both your touch typing speed and accuracy should increase quickly.

When you’re touch typing, the Home Row is where the four fingers of your left hand and the four fingers of your right hand will remain whenever they are not in use. Positioning your fingers on the Home Row is always the starting position whenever you begin a touch typing session. So get into the habit of placing these eight fingers on the eight corresponding keys on the Home Row. Here’s where your fingers should be when they’re properly positioned in “rest” mode:

The little finger on your left hand is on the letter A.
The left-hand ring finger is on the letter S.
The left-hand second finger is on the letter D.
The left-hand index finger is on the letter F.
The little finger on your right hand is on the semicolon.
The right-hand ring finger is on the letter L.
The right-hand second finger is on the letter K.
The right-hand index finger is on the letter J.

Rest both of your thumbs on the space bar. You can use either thumb to press the space bar. Some people use only one thumb (for example their left), while others use a combination. This is really a matter of personal preference.

If you’re new to typing, take some time to get comfortable with the location of the Home Row keys and proper Home Row finger placement. When your hands learn to automatically return to this position, you’ll be able to accurately position your fingers to hit the correct keys when typing. If your hands are off to one side, you might think you’re reaching for the right key, but you’ll be missing it and will type the letter or number to its left or right instead. Some QWERTY keyboards have a little raised bump on the “F” and “J” keys. The bumps make it easier to feel your way onto the correct index finger home keys. Once your index fingers learn the location of the correct Home Keys, placing your remaining fingers on their proper keys is simple.

Note: If you feel cramped in the home row position, try spreading your fingers a little. Space can be a problem with a smaller netbook or laptop keyboard.