Typing practice paragraphs from great writers

Type real paragraphs by Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Hazlitt and 5 other classic essayists, with live speed and accuracy. Free, no account needed.

From Corn-pone Opinions by Mark Twain

130 words · Long (over 110 words) · Easy · 1 paragraph matches

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Accuracy: –%
Words: 0/ 130

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I can never forget it. It was deeply impressed upon me. By my mother. Not upon my memory, but elsewhere. She had slipped in upon me while I was absorbed and not watching. The black philosopher’s idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing and in his business prosperities. He must restrict himself to corn-pone opinions—at least on the surface. He must get his opinions from other people; he must reason out none for himself; he must have no first-hand views.

All practice paragraphs

59 paragraphs

59 paragraphs and passages from 8 classic essays, grouped by essay. Very long paragraphs are split at sentence breaks into passages. Choose one to type it above, or open the essay to type it in full.

Questions about paragraph typing practice

How do I practice typing with paragraphs?

Pick a paragraph, then type it exactly as written, capitals and punctuation included. Read a phrase ahead instead of copying letter by letter, and keep your eyes on the screen rather than the keyboard. When you finish, check your speed and accuracy, then move to the next paragraph. Start with short, easy paragraphs and slow down whenever mistakes pile up: accuracy first, speed second. A few paragraphs on most days does more than one long session a week.

What is a good typing speed?

There is no single number that counts as good. A useful speed is one that keeps up with your thinking while most of your keystrokes are right, and it depends on what you type: paragraphs with punctuation, capitals and long words come out slower than lists of common words, so a speed from a word-list test is not directly comparable. The fairest comparison is with yourself. Note your words per minute and accuracy on a few paragraphs today, practice regularly, and compare again on paragraphs of the same length and difficulty.

How are words per minute and accuracy calculated?

Words per minute uses the standard convention that a word is five characters, including spaces and punctuation, and only correctly typed characters count. The clock starts at your first keystroke, and any pause longer than five seconds counts as five seconds. Accuracy is the share of your keystrokes that matched the text, so a mistake you go back and fix still counts against it.

Do I have to type curly quotes and dashes?

No. The paragraphs keep their original punctuation, but a straight apostrophe or quotation mark is accepted for a curly one, and a hyphen is accepted for an em or en dash, so everything can be typed on a standard keyboard.

Where do these paragraphs come from?

Every paragraph comes from an essay in the public domain, by writers such as Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Hazlitt and Edgar Allan Poe. Each one is between 35 and 160 words and makes sense on its own. Older essays often run a single paragraph for several pages, so some entries are passages of whole sentences taken from a longer paragraph. Difficulty is the Flesch-Kincaid grade level: easy is below grade 8, medium is 8 to 12 and hard is above 12.

Is it free, and do I need an account?

It is free and you do not need an account. Nothing you type on this page is saved. To type whole essays, keep your place and see your speed over time, you can create a free account.

Keep practicing

Read the typing practice guide for how to practice on real prose and how speed is measured.
Type a whole essay: the public-domain classics above can be typed in full without an account, starting with A College Magazine, Corn-pone Opinions or Dream-Children: A Reverie. Or browse all essays.
Learn about the writers on their author pages, from Robert Louis Stevenson to Joseph Addison.
Use typing to learn writing: retyping good prose closely is called copywork, an old way to absorb how good writers build sentences.