Researchers in Canada have found that when people are forced to write at a slower speed, it can actually enhance their way with words, with the use of word choice in particular benefiting from a calmer pace.

 

"Typing can be too fluent or too fast, and can actually impair¹ the writing process," said Srdan Medimorec, a cognitive² psychologist from the University of Waterloo. "It seems that what we write is a product of the interactions between our thoughts and the tools we use to express them."

 

To examine how an enforced speed limit might affect writing ability, the researchers recruited participants and asked them to write essays using both hands or with only one.

 

When the researchers examined the essays with text-analysis software, they discovered that the impeded³, one-handed typing was better, especially with regard to the sophistication of the vocabulary used.

 

"This is the first study to show that when you interfere⁴ with people's typing, their writing can get better," said Evan F. Risko, one of the team. "We're not saying that students should write their term papers with one hand, but our results show that going fast can have its drawbacks."

 

The authors of the study – which is published in the British Journal of Psychology⁵ – believe that by being forced to slow down when typing, writers enjoy greater time to conduct an internal word search.

 

This gives them a larger variety of terms to subsequently choose from, whereas fast typists may simply write down the first word they think of, which could result in poorer, less considered prose.

 

"This is important to consider as writing tools continue to emerge that let us get our thoughts onto the proverbial page faster and faster," said Risko.

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