VerseQ user manual

We tried to make VerseQ user manual interesting, concise and no-nonsense. There is a description of the program algorithm, and a few recommendations that will make your studies effective and quick. You will need no more than 10 minutes to go through it!

This manual, as well as the program, is always on the improve. This is why we'll be grateful for your opinions and ideas concerning this document.

1. Short Description

VerseQ typing tutor is a new step in touch type learning technology. VerseQ applies in-depth feedback approach and integral learning of keyboard layout.

With VerseQ you can touch type today, literally in an hour. And in one or two weeks, with 10 to 30 minutes of studies once or twice per day you will type like a touch-typing course graduate. And all of this - without nervous fatigue, in your spare time.

The secret of unique efficiency of VerseQ is actually a host of new technologies and approaches:

• Your studies start with all letters straight off - but at speed comfortable just for you. This ensures:
  • Not just mastery of button-pressing techniques, but also the second important skill, finger movement.
  • Continuous progress of your skill.
  • No place for threshold phenomenon in your studies! You'll be able to touch type literally in an hour or two.
  • Regular practice for all fingers.
• The program helps you learn "the chords" of your language.
• The program teaches you in a subtle way, gently working with you on your personal mistakes.
• Differential approach to learning of frequent and infrequent symbols.
• You don't have to memorize or drill anything into your head - it's all in your fingers. Yes, that's right, your fingers memorise everything on their own, without your direct participation.
• There is no discomfort whatsoever, moreover, studying with VerseQ helps to relax psychologically.
• But the most important feature of VerseQ is that it will teach absolutely anyone to touch type! What you will never hear in other keyboard tutor ads is that most people abandon their studies after about ten tedious hours of work without having learned eight buttons of the main row (ask those who tried it). Unlike these VerseQ will teach anyone, who invests in studies just a few hours. Check it for yourself now! :)

VerseQ brings you a lot of surprises! In particular, you should be ready that the principles used by VerseQ will greatly differ from your views on effective training. However, VerseQ teaches you 2 to 5 times faster as compared to standard keyboard tutors. And this is no paradox, actually, VerseQ is the first among keyboard tutors to use individual training paradigm, while standard tutors go on using the continuous process paradigm appropriate only for big classes. This is a complicated problem, which shall be discussed later in a series of articles written by VerseQ developers.

VerseQ is equally effective for:

• Beginners and pros, who are willing to improve
• Easy-tempered and impulsive, creative people
• Children and adults

2. Special features

VerseQ differs from other keyboard tutors in many unique ways:

• Your studies start with all letters straight off.

  All those who just learn to touch type can't help but feel nervous when asked to type letter 'A" for 150 times, then letter "O" for 150 times, and so on. This leads to irritation and mental fatigue. Usually their studies end there... forever. 

  Your studies start with all letters straight away.

• This program teaches you to memorise the chords, characteristic of the language.

  Any professional typist doesn't type words and phrases letter by letter, how you may think, but in chords, which their fingers "remember". These chords are key combinations characteristic of the language. For example, fingers strike such combinations as "th", "wh", "str" almost as one symbol. If you make a professional typist type such jumble as "saodfweoyrqedakljsda", which is not characteristic of the language, their speed will go down dramatically.

  This is why you should know not only key positions, but also the typical chords of the language. This is the prerequisite for professional touch typing!

• This program teaches you in a subtle way, gently working with you on your personal mistakes.

  Most trainers openly collect statistics on your problem letters and/or openly punish you for errors. Such practice can make you a "a stutterer", who fears coming of the next problem symbol and is sure to make a mistake or lose tempo.

  VerseQ does not point at your mistakes in any way, it just increases the percentage of your problem keys, which eliminates your weak points.

• Differential approach to learning of frequent and infrequent symbols.

  Some symbols are more frequently used by the language, some are less, some are very frequent, and some are very rare.

  So, there is no sense to spend much time on training of an infrequent symbol, and, vice versa, a frequently used letter deserves more of your attention.

3. Principles of work

The principles of work are quite simple:

• The program generates a line and you copy it on your keyboard.
• VerseQ collects statistics on your personal mistakes in a subtle way.
• If you are willing to go on, VerseQ generates another line, which you shall also copy, with difference that this new line will be more probable to contain your problem symbols. In that way you gradually train your fingers for effective work on keyboard.

Here, the essence is in the reference lines generated by VerseQ. The line is a random, but phonetically coherent string of characters built using the semantic language model. At the same time a built-in algorithm of VerseQ varies probability of different letters appearing in a line. This makes your problem symbols appear more often and in this way trains your weak spots.

Semantic language model data are kept in a separate file, which was created (using a standalone program) by analysing a large volume of textual information, i. e. tens of megabytes of pure text.

4. Learning process

It is unbelievably easy - you will see a window and a line of letters you should copy using your keyboard. As soon as you press the first key, the program will start collecting statistics on time (speed and rhythm) and errors.

After you are done with the first line, you can take a break and look up your statistics:

• speed

  30-70	- that is what you'll have after an hour of studies
  70	- good already!
  200	- basically, this is enough for work
  300 and above	- professional level

• rhythm (time variation between button presses vs average period of time)

  over 40%	- fairly good, you can work with this level of skill
  over 60%	- that's OK
  over 80%	- professional level
  over 90%	- super professional level!

• number of errors

  10-20	- very bad - you are in too much of a hurry.
  2-3	- fairly good, you can work, but still, slow down a bit...
  0	- great, if this result stays on, then you have professional skills!

• Pro Q. - proficiency quotient

  Actually, this index is close to your typing speed resources. It takes account of errors, rhythm, and speed.

  In your studies try to keep Pro Q value higher than speed. This means that you still have resources to spare. If your speed is higher, than Pro Q - this means that you are in too much of a hurry. You'd better lower speed or take a break.

Having taken a look at statistics we can go on. Now, you see a new line, which was generated with account for the mistakes you have made during the last session. 

If you made mistakes, probability of your problem symbols appearing in a newly generated line will increase (also, the more often this letter is used in the language, the higher will be the probability). The line corrected for errors will be shown in yellow.

If you made no errors in your last session, a new line will be generated using the actual letter probability for the language, and thus, won't be corrected. Such lines will be in white

You should do your best to work with white lines most of the time!

5. Guidelines on working with VerseQ

These guidelines are mostly intended for the beginners, but the experienced typists should also comply with them.

• Place your fingers on key positions:

  Fingers of your left hand on ASDF and fingers of your right hand on JKL:, both thumbs on the space bar. Your index fingers are on buttons "F" and "J", which have little bumps helping to find the right position without looking.

  It is advisable to cover your hands with non-transparent cloth, or make a paper screen to break the habit of looking at the keyboard - and this is very important!

• Start typing a line you see in the upper portion of the screen.

  If you do not remember where a key is, look at the keyboard image on the screen, but in no case look at your hands!

  Each finger operates only in its sector. These sectors on the keyboard image have their own color for each finger. Never cross the borders of these sectors!

  Having pressed a key, the finger should first go back to its initial position, and then you proceed with typing the following symbol. In the beginning this rule is also very important!). 

  Do not hurry! Take your time - speed is the least important thing here (however paradoxical this may sound)! Accuracy is the most important thing. Then goes rhythm, and only after that, speed...

  Try to be calm and relaxed - aim calmly (without looking) and press a key, only when you are absolutely sure (take your time, this may as well take an hour, more important is to stay calm!). Don't be angry, if you make mistakes - take it philosophically

• When you are done, take a break, take look at statistics, and if you do not feel tired yet, take a go at another line...

  5 to 7 times is enough for one session.

  But if you need to master the keyboard in the shortest possible time, your training should be more intensive. The following routine is the most effective:

  1. 15 minutes of training
  2. 5-minute break
  3. 10 minutes of training
  4. 10-minute break
  5. 5 minutes of training
  6. 15-minute break

  Total: 1 hour. If required, follow the same routine in the next hour.

  As experience shows, an absolute beginner following such routine shall be able to make 12 to 16 words per minute in a few hours...

  However, try not to overdo, give yourself enough rest. The best practice is about an hour per day, however you can skip a day from time to time. And, please, make sure you read section #6.

VerseQ is a wonderful pre-work warmup tool for a pro. In such case person chooses their own way of working with VerseQ.

6. If you show little progress, get tired and irritated...

If you are not very successful in your studies - you get tired and nervous, quickly forget what you have learned, though you are a fairly healthy person and not under serious stress...

If this is the case, pay special attention on your sleeping habit. In most cases your sleep is a key element affecting efficiency of your brain and nervous system.

You should not only get enough sleep, but follow a strict schedule - go to bed and get up at the proper time. Besides that, the time when you go to bed is also very important. The best time is between 9 and 11 p.m.

If you are an "owl" (who prefer to sleep and wake at late times), you could have noticed that you felt a little chill when staying up till 2 to 5 in the morning. This was caused not only by tiredness, the thing is, that your body temperature changes in the range of 0.6 °C (one of circadian rhythms). Sleep studies show that person gets a good sleep if their minimum body temperature is within the deep sleep phase. This means that you should go to bed a few hours before that, i.e., at 9-11 p.m. Moreover, if your sleep and the moment of your minimum body temperature coincide, a good sleep takes a few hours less (the difference can be 6 hours or even more). This means that, even if you have urgent things to do, go to bed on time - you will be full of energy and have more time for your life!

If you go to bed on time but cannot sleep. Just lie down, close your eyes and try to achieve the state of absolute darkness - so that with your eyes closed you wouldn't see any flashes or other moving objects. You can even put on a sleep mask. Just stay this way until it is time to get up. Even if you think that you did not sleep a wink, get up on time all the same.

When should you get up? This depends on a person. Some people sleep just 4 to 5 hours, some 8 to 9, while others even more. However, you can find the right time for waking up. It's when you are already almost awake and feel like having more of a little nap... That's the time! Stretch yourself and get up! :)

If you cannot remember, if you had any dreams, this means that this wasn't the right time for waking up - the deep sleep phase. You'll be better off not getting up at that time (though it's quite easy, you might feel that your head is filled with cotton for the whole day long). Try to shift your rising time for 15-30-45 minutes - you need to find the REM sleep phase (that's when you see vivid dreams). REM sleep lasts about 10 to 15 minutes, once every hour and a half (this time may vary, e.g., in little children REM sleep and deep sleep phases are roughly equal).

The first days will be somewhat hard (occasional drowsiness and tiredness may come in), but in 3 to 5 days your sleep will become normal, you will always have a good night's rest, and your thinking will become clear and quick. This will greatly benefit your work with VerseQ as well as your other daily activities.

Which is also important, make sure that you take enough vitamins and minerals.

Please, do not ignore these recommendations!

7. Interface

In this version you can:

1. View help page by pressing F1
2. Turn on/off the metronome by pressing F2. At the same time you can decrease/increase tempo by pressing PgUp/PgDn keys respectively.
3. Press F3 to hide/show keyboard image
4. Press F4 to hide/show statistics
5. Press F5 to select a workspace.
6. Press Esc to exit the program

8. Exiting the program

Press Esc and this is it...

9. Contacts

Home page: www.verseq.com

Forum: www.verseq.com/forum - here you will always find support - ask your questions, share your views and problems! :)

Please share your views on efficiency and usability of VerseQ, your opinions and ideas! Don't hesitate to tell us how it helped you!

P.S. We wish you many pleasant moments and great results with VerseQ! And most of all, we wish you success in all the good things that you do!

Sincerely, VerseQ team

• 1. Short Description
• 2. Special features
• 3. Principles of work
• 4. Learning process
• 5. Guidelines on working with VerseQ
• 6. If you show little progress, get tired and irritated...
• 7. Interface
• 8. Exiting the program
• 9. Contacts

VerseQ typing tutor, a new step in touch type learning technology. You can pick up touch typing literally in an hour, and after 8 to 15 hours of training you will type like a touch-typing course graduate.

Check it for yourself now!

VerseQ is not just the best of traditional learning technology, it goes even further utilizing human ability to learn to its maximum.

VerseQ is the first of typing tutors to apply: in-depth feedback approach to learning; integral learning of keyboard layout; semantic language model used for interactive generation of phonetically related lessons. Special attention was paid to psychological comfort of study.

All of this brings unique efficiency and speed of learning.

Effective touch typing with VerseQ starts with 10-15 minutes a day, in your spare time. Even this little time will bring good results fast!