Hello all,

I cannot focus at all on my dissertation! I know what I want to write and how. Yet, it is so much effort to think of the proper words/phrases to use that in the end, I lose focus and then stress! :(
I am basically never satisfied with the way I express myself on paper. I wish my vocabulary was more sophisticated.

Succeeding in a PhD is a lot about being less of a perfectionist, and just getting enough ok words down. You've got to learn to let it go. Have you tried dictating your writing? I found this great when I was struggling to express things right in words. I would record directly into my computer, speaking the ideas and sentences as they occurred to me. And then I played them back and typed them up. I found it helped me get through an impasse.

And sophisticated vocabulary is not something to aspire to in a thesis IMHO. People using overly complex words is a bad thing in academic writing, from the reader's point of view. It's better if you express yourself clearly and simply in straightforward language.