Arduino - Garbled serial output even at 9600 baud

Question

I am doing a project that requires the Arduino to read data from a potentiometer. I was trying to get the potentiometer working so I used this code, which should read the potentiometer and then output it to the serial monitor.

int val = 0;

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
  val = analogRead(A1);
  Serial.println("Head " + val);
}

I used the code from https://www.arduino.cc/en/tutorial/potentiometer and changed the code from blinking an LED to outputting the value to Serial where I Am monitoring it using the Arduino IDE's Serial monitor tool and all I get is this

⸮⸮>W07⸮⸮7M⸮⸮⸮[+⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮z⸮R⸮⸮⸮a~⸮⸮yo6|⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮߉⸮[⸮}⸮⸮⸮⸮⸮7⸮%
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It works fine when using the original code.

Answer 1

Please Note:

1. First make sure that the baud rate used in the sketch is same as the baud rate used in the Serial Monitor
2. Use a delay of 10 milliseconds for stability: delay(10);
3. The val variable is int , so better to use Serial.printline with String Constructor as:

    Serial.println("Head " + String(val);

Answer 2

The baud rate in your code and the baud rate chosen in the Serial Monitor window are different. make sure they match and the output should then be legible.