The term "gobbledygook" refers to the many phrases that are so overused they have become meaningless. David suggests that instead of littering your writing with cliches, jargon and hype-filled words, you should instead write using words and phrases your buyers use and understand.
HubSpot's Gobbledygook Grader analyzes press releases, website text, brochure copy, resumes or any other document to generate a score based on how many overused gobbledygook phrases were included. The tool also suggests ways to improve your writing in order to communicate in clear, meaningful language.
In conjunction with the launch of Gobbledygook Grader, David Meerman Scott also recently released an analysis of all 711,123 press releases distributed by North American companies in 2008 through Business Wire, Marketwire, GlobeNewswire and PR Newswire. Using Dow Jones Insight, the project took a look at 325 gobbledygook phrases from various sources and analyzed the number of uses for each phrase, generating a list of the top 25 gobbledygook phrases used in press releases sent in North America in 2008.
To make sure you're not writing using gobbledygook, run your text through Gobbledygook Grader at http://gobbledygook.grader.com. I used it for this blog post, and it checked out great!
Interested in which gobbledygook phrases came out on top in David's analysis? Check out his blog post here.
Originally published Apr 9, 2009 6:07:00 PM, updated January 17 2023