Bernhard Schieber

Gunning Fog Index: Diagnose Sentence and Vocabulary Burden Before Editing to a Target

Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 390

Inspect what drives the fog score

The final grade-like score is less useful than seeing whether sentence length, polysyllabic vocabulary, or both are driving the friction that needs editorial attention.

Premise

The Gunning Fog Index is an editorial screening device for prose that may have accumulated surface complexity. It combines average sentence length with the percentage of counted complex words and produces a grade-like estimate. For executives who commission policies, notices, or public information, its strongest use is not compliance with a target score. It is diagnosis: the two component measures tell a communication team what kind of textual burden deserves inspection before the message is tested with actual readers.

Gunning Fog Index — Inspect what drives the fog score. Executive Insight Brief 370 by Bernhard Schieber.

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What these mean

Editorial orientation · Family

Tool

In this series, Tool names the editorial family primarily used to act on, examine, measure or organize communication. It includes instruments, methods, practices, protocols, codes and institutional arrangements. Membership does not certify effectiveness, portability or safe use in every setting.

Editorial orientation · Category

Measurement & Assessment Instruments

Produces measures, scores, profiles or assessments through defined items, observations or measurement rules. The entry identifies what is measured and the conditions governing interpretation.

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