Things to remember...

  1. What you want might not be out there.
       NEC Research Institute estimates that there are roughly 1,000,000,000 web pages. However, this doesn't mean that someone necessarily published the exact information that you are looking for. Be aware of this especially if you're looking for something that might be obscure (e.g. a list of all the people who served in a particular military regiment during the revolutionary war).
  2. What you want might be out there, but not as you're thinking of it.
       Never forget that since no two people think exactly alike, the person who published information that you might find useful may have used different words to describe the same thing. For example, some people use the word taxi some use the word cab. In Europe, people use the term holiday instead of vacation. Therefore, don't be shy about using different terms when searching for information.
  3. What you want may be out there but not for free.
       While there is A LOT of information on the Web that is free, there is also some information which you have to pay for. Two of the biggest examples of this are magazine articles and in-depth business information. Generally, most major magazines have websites, however the website usually exists to advertise their publication. Some will offer full text of their magazines, some will offer full text of old issues, some will offer only an article title and a paragraph or so describing the article, etc. etc. Business information (Online trading is the 2nd most popular thing to do on the Web), is another thing which is generally free, but will sometimes cost money. For example, you can find stock quote information in many places for free, but if you wanted to formulate several stock quotes together and run various types of comparisons you might have to pay to subscribe to a service that has the information assembled that way.
  4. People are generally helpful, if you ask a question, you'll usually get an answer.
       The World Wide Web has only been around since 1993, because of that just about everyone remembers when they first "got on" and how lost they might have become. For that reason people are usually helpful when you ask a question. This pertains anywhere from the person that you're sitting next to in a computer lab, to an e-mail address on a website. Besides it always makes people feel smart when they can answer questions.
  5. EVERY Search Tool works differently.
       Generally there are Subject Guides (Directories), Search Engines, and Meta Search Engines. Each one of these works differently some are like contents of a book, some are more like the index of a book, and some are like an index to several books. Additionally, just to make life more interesting - each directory site can work differently, each Search Engine can work differently, etc.
  6. No Search Tool covers the entire World Wide Web
       As was said earlier there are approximately 1,000,000,000 Web pages out there. The BIGGEST Search Tools cover @600,000,000-800,000,000 of those pages. Therefore it's important to use more than one tool when your looking to find lots of information on a topic.