Truman Capote dismissed Jack Kerouac’s On The Road by sneering, “That’s not writing. That’s typing.” Today, I’d like to praise typing as an unsung essential journalism skill.  I’ll argue that being able to type fast can mean the difference between having good and great interviews to work with, and that teaching oneself to type fast -- very fast -- is as important to one’s career as a journalist as being well informed or understanding grammar.

Ever since my Powerbook 180 (1993), I have conducted face-to-face interviews with my laptop in my hands. Back then, it was a novelty, and occasionally, my interview subject would recoil, or at least express nervousness. To allay their anxiety, I’d make the following offer: “When I get home tonight I’ll email you my notes. That way, we can clear up any misunderstandings right away, and when the story appears, you’ll have my notes to make sure I quoted you correctly.”

It usually worked; the interview would proceed. Nowadays a laptop isn’t such a rarity, but I still make the same offer. Only about a fifth of my interview subjects actually ask for the notes, but all of them seem to like being offered the opportunity. It sets a nice tone for the interview.

And when one does ask for the notes, the ensuing back-and-forth usually helps me make the story better. I honestly can’t think of a time when somebody took the opportunity to take something back. What usually happens is, the source says something like, “You didn’t get me quite right here. What I was trying to say was this....” And that opens up a second interview -- a deeper one, that often leads to even more interesting insights. I’ve had reporters throw up their hands in horror at the thought of allowing a source to amend a quote after the interview. But why not? Isn’t the point to portray people, and their ideas, accurately? I would never show a source my story before publication, but until I’ve processed them into copy, the notes from our interview feels to me like our joint property. I don’t want to play “gotcha” with sources; I want to understand and convey their ideas properly. I want them to read my stories and say, “He got me right,” even if they don’t come off well in the article.

(I can see exceptions to this. If the governor admits in an interview that he looted the pension fund to play the horses, I’m not going to let him take that back. But in the 16 years I’ve been offering to share interview notes with sources, something like that hasn’t happened to me.)

The main reason, though, for taking interview notes with a laptop instead of a pen-and-paper (or, God forbid, a tape recorder) is that you end up with a keyword-searchable transcript of the interview. This gets really important when you’ve done a lot of interviews for a story or a book. When you’re writing, and you remember that somebody told a story about their pekinese dog, you can search for the word “pekinese” and find it.

Typing your interviews word-for-word also lets you catch regionalisms and other argot you might miss with a pen. When I was reading over the interviews I conducted for Nine Lives, I realized that people from below Canal Street seemed to say, “We’re meeting there for eight o’clock,” while people from above Canal Street tended to say, “We’re meeting there at eight o’clock.” It’s not a big thing, but it’s kind of interesting, and I hadn’t even noticed it during the interviews. I found it later, in my notes.

You can’t conduct your interviews on a laptop though, unless you can type as fast as a  person can talk. Not only that, you have to be able to do it and still keep your brain engaged in the conversation. So the words have to pass directly from your ears into your fingertips, leaving your cerebrum free to ask questions and respond to answers. This isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s a skill you can teach yourself.

First, if you type with two fingers, you’ve got to learn to type with all ten. There are computer apps to teach you this (Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is one), or you can take a class at your local community college or adult-ed center.

Once you’re learning, practice constantly. You don’t need to sit at a keyboard to practice, either. I learned to type in seventh grade, and I used to practice constantly. I’d be sitting on a bus and see a Dristan ad, and I’d subtly move my fingers to type the copy. I’d listen to my parents talking at the dinner table and try to keep up with the words, moving my fingers below the table.

I can type as fast as most people can talk, and if I had to identify the one skill that has helped me most to achieve my limited success as a freelance journalist, the ability to type fast might be it. I cannot stress enough how important this is.

Sometimes, you can’t use a laptop -- like if you’re walking around beside the source, or in the middle of a battlefield, or anyplace where the setting isn’t a formal sit-down. Then you have to use a notebook. But this is key: transcribe all your notes that night. And when you transcribe, don’t just move the words from the page to the laptop. Use the notes to write full paragraphs about what you saw and heard. This will often by your best writing, because the subject will be the freshest in your mind. I’ve frequently moved whole paragraphs from my transcribed notes straight into my stories.

I’ll say it again: transcribe your notes every day. If you get even a day behind, you’ll never catch up, and your memories won’t be fresh. The moment will be gone. This means spending hours in your hotel room every night working, instead of going out on the town. But that’s what it takes.

Final note: If you know, or can learn, classic Gregg shorthand it would be a great substitute for typing. Gregg shorthand records speech by sound, so you not only get words, you get accents. Problem is, it’s almost impossible to learn it on your own, and nobody gives classes in it anymore.

As for the horrors of using a tape recorder, I address that here.