7 Habits of Highly Effective Web Searches Topic 3 501

How useful might these 7 habits of effective web search strategies be?
http://websearch.about.com/od/searchingtheweb/a/sevenhabits.htm

The 7 habits, which will be outlined below are extremely effective web searching strategies/tips to use at high school level. They'll also be very beneficial to teachers as well, as I know that there are many teachers out there, even in my school, that are not well equipped to undertake effective search strategies.

Habit 1 - Use targeted phrases. The more specific your query is, the more success you're likely to have. Use quotation marks around the phrase or words you want to search for.

Habit 2 - Expand your search horizons. Use more than one search engine.

Habit 3 - Learn a few web search tricks.

Habit 4 - Use your time wisely.

Habit 5 - Learn how stuff works on the web

Habit 6 - Stay on top of new web developments

Habit 7 - Cultivate a love of discovery

I think that steps 1-3 are handy and useful tips and are essential for any web searcher to achieve step 4 (using one's time wisely). Step 4 can occur because steps 5-7 have been developed over time. I can envisage the whole process working quite well if people allow sufficient time for steps 5 and 6 to develop a positive attitude about step 7 - cultivating a love of discovering new and exciting information.

This website is quite a good teaching tool as it offers some easy to understand hints for successful web searching, E.G. "Why is the sky blue?" is a better search strategy than a "sky blue question". Using one's time wisely is perhaps the most practical idea to come out of the reading. Many of us are great time wasters on the Net and somewhat frustrating for everyone. Learning more about how things work on the web is essential for developing effective search habits and understanding this is important. The more effective one is the more one will cultivate a love of discovery, and consequently the more time efficient one will become. Using other search engines and search tolls, including meta search engines are also useful ideas.