Is the idiom drive home informal?

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alpacinou

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Is the idiom drive home informal?

Is it okay to use it in a semi-formal in a university essay?

This is the sentence:

My work on the course project drove home for me the importance of choosing the right people to study.
 

GoesStation

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Is the idiom drive home informal?

Is it okay to use it in a semi-formal in a university essay?
It's fine. I've underlined an area that has a serious punctuation error. Please correct it in a new post.
 

alpacinou

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It's fine. I've underlined an area that has a serious punctuation error. Please correct it in a new post.

Do you mean the sentence or the question part?
 

GoesStation

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Do you mean this?

Is the idiom "drive home" informal?
Yes, but you have to choose one or the other. Using quotation marks and italics means the text was in italics in the original.
 
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tedmc

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I would add the bolded words as follows:

My work on the course project drove home for me the point of the importance of choosing the right people to study with.
 

Tarheel

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I would add the bolded words as follows:

My work on the course project drove home for me the point of the importance of choosing the right people to study with.

The original is okay, but without "with" it seems like he's talking about people he wants to learn more about. With "with" you're talking about study partners.
 

tedmc

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The original is okay, but without "with" it seems like he's talking about people he wants to learn more about. With "with" you're talking about study partners.

"Drive home the point" is a more common phrase.
OP is to clarify what "the right people" means - the subject of the study or study partners.
 

Tarheel

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While "drive home the point" might be the more common phrase, here it's replaced by "the importance of". Only one is needed.
 

Charlie Bernstein

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I would add the bolded words as follows:

My work on the course project drove home for me the point of the importance of choosing the right people to study with.
Using the point of isn't wrong, but it's more complicated. Driving home the importance isn't the same as driving home a point about the importance.

Using with changes the meaning of the sentence. Is Al studying people or studying with people?
 
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