Why Yoga?
Yoga has it's basis in ancient Indian philosophy. Practitioners of yoga use postures, breathing, and meditation to encourage control over the mind and body. Hatha yoga, the most commonly type of yoga practiced in the United States, includes Iyengar, Ashtanga, Vini, Kundalini, and Bikram yoga.
According to the National Institutes of Health, research suggests that practicing yoga may:
- Relieve stress and support mental and emotional health
- Relieve pain
- Encourage healthy habits
- Improve one's quality of life
Cultural Studies
- AnthroSource This link opens in a new windowAnthroSource is a collection of all past and current publications of the American Anthropological Association, including journals, newsletters, bulletins, and conference proceedings. This includes the entire publication history of each title; the earliest journals in the collection date back to the late 19th century.
- ARTSTOR This link opens in a new window
Artstor is now available in its new home on JSTOR! When you search JSTOR, you will find Artstor’s 2+ million licensed images and more than 1,700 additional primary source collections alongside JSTOR’s vast collection of books, journal articles, and research reports.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and full text for articles from CommSearch and the Mass Media Articles Index.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
The MLA (Modern Language Association) International Bibliography with full text provides access to an index as well as full-text content of books as well as articles published on modern languages, literature, folklore, and linguistics
- Life Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Full-color, cover-to-cover coverage of the photojournalism magazine from its first issue in November 1936 through December 2000.
- National Geographic Magazine This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive, timely articles and legendary photos documenting life on our planet any beyond. The National Geographic Archive offers full-color and full-text coverage of each issue of the magazine from 1888-current.
Hello from Your Librarian
Welcome to the course research guide for RCC100: Cultures of Yoga, Mind & Body
Think of this guide as a one-stop shop for finding, evaluating, and citing resources. This guide will be helpful when preparing for your Final Research Paper, but it will also help you discover and assess sources for your future classes.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact Wenxian Zhang, Your Librarian.
General Library Research Databases
- Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Ultimate offers an extensive collection of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, reports, books, and videos covering various subjects like astronomy, engineering, health, law, mathematics, and more. It's a comprehensive resource for scholars in many fields.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, images, and primary sources.
- Columbia International Affairs Online This link opens in a new window
Includes the full text of papers and briefs and some access to journal articles, books, foundation-funded research projects, and proceedings from conferences.
- ProQuest Research Library This link opens in a new window
Articles from scholarly journals, popular magazines and newspapers, in many different subject areas.
Scholarly, Trade, and Popular Sources
One of the most challenging aspects of finding reliable sources can be determining exactly what kind of source you're looking at. In many cases, you will need to be using only articles from scholarly journals for your research. How do you know if something is a scholarly journal? The table below gives some basic criteria you can use to distinguish between scholarly and non-scholarly sources.
| Scholarly Journals | Trade Journals | Popular Magazines | |
| Intended Audience | Academics, researchers, other scholars and students. | Professionals in a specific field. | General public. |
| Author and Review Process | Peer review. Articles are written by experts in a field and must be reviewed by other experts in that field to ensure their credibility before they are published. | No peer review, but journals editors are usually experts in the field. Authors are usually experts in a field, sometimes journalists with subject expertise. | No peer review, articles need only be approved by the magazine's editorial staff, who are not experts in the field. Authors are journalists with no subject expertise. |
| Citations | Extensive citations and reference list. | Sometimes includes a few citations, but not required. | Usually no citations. |
| Example |  |
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Your Librarian
Evaluate Sources
- Web of Science This link opens in a new window
The Web of Science provides access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedings, and other documents in various academic disciplines.