editing tips

a boom in science fiction
The birth of the Second Visit is telling of the self-consciousness of a new era.
Cybernetics is never given the mention it deserves.

Popular enthusiasm for these projected futures also speak with a great deal of precision of concurrent anxieties vis-a-vis an intractable past, the specter of which continued to fuel and to delimit imaginations of the future.

a blue print for a progressive future

raises questions as to the relations of human beings to the centrality of the silicon chip

reading “At Middle Age,” a story about a human doctor, alongside “The Curious Case,”


Ding Xueliang, at that time a doctoral student in Sociology at Harvard

disappear without a trace

soar among the clouds

the smell of the alcohol also lingers in his nostrils

The terrified Little Smartie shouts for help, only to find that the fire is soon “extinguished” by his hosts who have simply turned on the lights in the living room –– the fire was just another image on TV, but holographic as opposed to two dimensional.

 blur the boundaries between the space of information and the space of living. 

The surface of a holographic film would no longer present a point-to-point two-dimensional image of an object as with ordinary photograph

the expansion of wireless radio broadcasts

the accessibility of TV sets to ordinary households

reduce the human body into an instrument no different from other digital processing devices

a series of heated discussions began with a volley of severe criticisms 

As with most of her generation, she was indoctrinated with the belief that

it is only a derivative from the pursuit of her own interest. 

In (no the ) June of 1980

in the same guise

has no need for eating and drinking, for resting and consuming, and no parents nor siblings or any social relations to tend to.

her gentle demeanor

What puzzles Professor Shen is the question of how to name and measure the girl’s services, which have brought him so much enjoyment but don’t seem appropriately passed off as low-level manual labor.

Dr. Liang’s “unprofessional” behavior aroused suspicion from his colleague.

To Gu, “modern medical science is the accumulation and gist of western medical knowledge,” which brooks no contradiction. 

(eg1. They are so entrenched in their positions they brook  no questions, and are immune to new data.

  eg 2. he would not brook  dissent)

diseases that even medical books pronounce incurable

the play makes of the blood transfusion Liang’s all-purpose remedy to his patients in danger

in accounting for the difficulty of developing expert systems, it was often bemoaned that

the issue of whether 

Toffler and Bell are quick to dispense with manual labor as “inferior” forms of labor 

books restricted to limited circles of high Party cadres

philosophical thought     intellectual ferment  (no "s")

disillusionment with