Essay questions constantly ask about causes, and my feedback says I list factors without distinguishing between them. Long term, short term, underlying and immediate all seem to be labels for the same list.
Is there a real distinction here, or is it just vocabulary for ranking things?
Accepted Answer
There is a real distinction and the counterfactual test gets at it.
A condition is something whose absence would have made the event unlikely but which was present for a long time without producing it. A cause is something whose absence would plausibly have changed the outcome at the time it happened.
Tension between the European powers was a condition in 1914. It had been there for decades without producing a general war. The July crisis and the specific decisions taken in it are candidates for causes.
The reason this matters for marks is that listing conditions answers a different question from the one asked. If a condition was present for thirty years, it cannot by itself explain why the thing happened in one particular year.
Worth being careful with the counterfactual though, since examiners are divided on it.
Used lightly it sharpens an argument. Used heavily it becomes speculation dressed as analysis, and some markers dislike it strongly. E. H. Carr was scathing about it, and the debate has not gone away.
The safe version is to use it as a private test while planning, and to write the result as a claim about relative weight rather than as an alternative history of what would have happened.
A structural point that follows: if your paragraphs are one per factor, you are listing. If they are organised around the relationship between factors, you are arguing. Same evidence, different essay.
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