When students of English deliver oral presentations at university on academic topics, there is often a dilemma as to whether to incorporate academic vocabulary into their monologues or not. Academic vocabulary can help students to present their ideas concisely and be a 'badge of identity' to the academic community. However, acquiring a productive use of these words is problematic due to their abstract nature and low frequency of occurrence. This paper reports on the strategies of Chinese students of English in deploying academic vocabulary while delivering an oral presentation in a third-year undergraduate module. The paper demonstrates how some students succeed by using academic vocabulary in relatively circumscribed ways while some avoid the vocabulary. Less successful strategies are observed if students rely too heavily on academic vocabulary when they do not have a productive knowledge of the words. The paper suggests that language idiosyncrasies may operate which compound the dilemma for teachers and students of English.