Hi, I'm a new MPhil student and my research in a few wordsis about the dental health care services for the intellectual and physicaldisabled individuals. I’ve been searching and reading about health policies,epidemiology, special needs dentistry and intellectual and physical disability.I feel lost and overwhelmed with all the information. Any tips on how to organizemy thoughts and deal with a multidisciplinary research the right way?

P.S anyone with a multidisciplinary topic at hand is morethan welcome to share his/her experience with us.

Thanks,

Hi m_a_r_o

Sorry this is probably a year too late but I only discovered the forum today! I'v been working on interdisciplinary research but in environmental science. Interdisciplinary research can indeed be overwhelming but I think the key is establishing main themes that you want to focus on. And work on defining your research question (which will lead to your main themes). The research question may evolve, but the themes you have been reading about will also influence this. I suggest mind mapping too, as a way to bring out key ideas and interactions.

Once you got your themes, bring out topics within the themes and focus on key authors / points that come up frequently (or perhaps have been neglected). This is all for the lit review process which will feed into your discussion. Physically managing the amount of information and papers can be crazy. There have been some suggestions on the forum on how to organise your papers (http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=23179)

The problem I am finding with interdisciplinary research is that is much easier to work within disciplines. The way I have structured it is by looking at the linkages between disciplines (common goals) and how these have interacted with each other. Also importantly, to look at the broader context and what it means (in my research the broader context is human-environment interactions)

What I have written above is mainly what I have learnt over the last year, but it has been a hectic process and I definitely dont think that I have 'mastered' it yet. Please share if you have come any other advice or tips!
:-)