Well done for completing the exercise! Now you've learnt to identify the elements of SCRAP, look for them in your own emails and the emails people send you.

Make SCRAP work for you

You'll find that many emails only contain some of the elements. For example, a simple response that says 'Thanks for sending me the file' contains only the politeness element.

Or you might find that some of the parts of SCRAP are repeated more than once in the same email. Sometimes that's fine. But it may be that the email is actually repeating itself needlessly. If it's your own email, see if you can edit these bits out.

Above all, when you're struggling to put things together in a new email, put the SCRAP formula to use. You'll save yourself (and your reader) a lot of time and stress.