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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35023
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In addition to the points raised in other answers, I'd also mention that if you're going to include something you don't know about, then you _really_ need someone knowledgeable in that subject to give you guidance. If one of the characters is a martial artist and there's a fight scene, find someone who's a martial artist to sanity-check it. If there's something about tech, find yourself a geek.

I've proofread something for a friend where he very much had this problem. I can't remember the details, but he was hung up on a 1980s conception of what went into personal electronics, as well as a misconception about data rates. I had to point out gently that no, you don't have pins which you can see and tweak with pliers; no, the processing that the average mobile can manage these days really is incredibly powerful and mostly not a limiting factor; and no, however you run your mobile internet connection, it's still never going to compare to copper or fibre. He was trying to write something loosely cyberpunk, but he didn't have the technical background to pull any depth of suspension of disbelief for the kind of target market his book was aiming at. Since some of these limits were plot elements, he needed to go back and completely rethink the reasons why his characters would need to follow that plot path.

Original score: 4