SC1301 Language & Logic

Big Thinking Statement

This module forms part of a curriculum organised around Big Thinking, a unifying intellectual framework that helps you understand how knowledge from different disciplines fits together and how it can be applied to the grand challenges of our time. Drawing on perspectives from the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, Big Thinking encourages you to connect ideas across scales, from the origins of the universe and life to human societies, technologies, and ethical systems, so that you can reason rigorously, navigate complexity, and situate specialised knowledge within a broader context.

Course Aims

This course is designed to foster Big Thinking in the areas of Language and Effective Communication through Logic and Reasoning. This course will help you to develop as writers, thinkers, and communicators by engaging with some of the most fundamental ideas about the world and our place within it. You will learn to grapple with concepts from across the disciplines - not only as scientific or philosophical ideas, but as questions to be explained, argued about, and communicated with clarity and depth through writing.

Through the close study of exemplary texts, structured practice in composing essays, and peer critique, you will learn to craft arguments that are logical, persuasive, and original. Writing is not treated merely as a skill but as a mode of inquiry: a way to connect knowledge across disciplines, to make sense of abstract ideas, and to and reflect on the role of knowledge in shaping human self-awareness and understanding. Through this, you will be equipped to write with precision and rigour, to engage critically with the ideas that shape society, and to communicate your own perspectives with confidence.

By the end of this course, you will be equipped with the skills and tools of critical thinking, reading, writing, and communication that will enable you to better understand the various grand challenges of our time.