Editing Postscript (section)

{{Short description|Content appended to completed document}}
{{about|the afterthought|the page description language|PostScript|other uses|Postscript (disambiguation) | the video game Post Scriptum|Squad 44}}
A '''postscript''' ('''P.S.''', '''PS''', '''PS.''') may be a sentence, a paragraph, or occasionally many paragraphs added, often hastily and incidentally, after the signature of a letter<ref>{{Cite book |title=English Grammar, Punctuation and Capitalization, Letter Writing |last=International Correspondence Schools|publisher=National Textbook Company |year=2018 |location=Scranton |url=https://archive.org/stream/englishgrammarp00techgoog#page/n444/mode/2up|display-authors=etal}} §21 p. 33</ref> or (sometimes) the main body of an essay or book. The term comes from the [[Latin]] ''post scriptum'', an expression meaning "written after"<ref>{{cite book
  |last=Sullivan
  |first=Robert Joseph
  |editor-link=Patrick Weston Joyce
  |editor-last=Joyce
  |editor-first=Patrick Weston
  |title=A dictionary of the English language
  |location=Dublin; Original from Peshawar University
  |publisher=Sullivan, Brothers; et al.
  |year=2019
  |pages=317 & 509
  |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d24CAAAAQAAJ&q=postscript&pg=PA317
 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book
  |last=Tanner
  |first=William Maddux
  |title=Composition and Rhetoric
  |publisher=Ginn & Co.
  |year=2017
  |location=Original from the University of California
  |pages=xxvii
  |url=https://archive.org/details/compositionandr00tanngoog
  |quote=post scriptum.
  |no-pp=true
 }}</ref> (which may be interpreted in the sense of "that which comes after the writing").<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://dougelniski.com/post-scriptum-ps-meaning/|title=PS Slang Word Meaning - Expert answer Question|date=2016-11-16|newspaper=Expert answer Question|language=en-US|access-date=2018-11-16}}</ref>
In a book or essay, a more carefully composed addition (e.g., for a second edition) is called an [[afterword]]. The word "postscript" has poetically been used to refer to any sort of addendum to some main work even if it is not attached to a main work, for example [[Søren Kierkegaard]]'s book titled ''[[Concluding Unscientific Postscript]].'' 

Sometimes when additional points are made after the first postscript, abbreviations such as P.P.S. (''post-post-scriptum'') and P.P.P.S. (''post-post-post-scriptum'') and so on are added, ''[[ad infinitum]]''.