Question dodging is the intentional avoidance of responding to a question

Question

A question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or else the request itself made by such an expression. This information may be provided with an answer....

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This may happen when the responder either doesn't know the answer and wants to avoid embarrassment, or when the responder is being interrogated or questioned in debate

Debate

Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...

, and wants to avoid giving a direct response. Overt question dodging can sometimes be employed humorously, in order to sidestep giving a public answer in a political discussion: when a reporter asked Mayor Richard J. Daley

Richard J. Daley

Richard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F...

 why Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...

 had lost the state of Illinois in the 1968 presidential election

United States presidential election, 1968

The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial United States presidential election. Coming four years after Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won in a historic landslide, it saw Johnson forced out of the race and Republican Richard Nixon elected...

, Daley replied "He lost it because he didn't get enough votes."

A false accusation of question dodging can sometimes be made as a disingenuous tactic in debate, in the informal fallacy

Informal fallacy

An informal fallacy is an argument whose stated premises fail to support their proposed conclusion. The deviation in an informal fallacy often stems from a flaw in the path of reasoning that links the premises to the conclusion...

 of the loaded question. A common way out of this argument is not to answer the question (e.g. with a simple 'yes' or 'no'), but to challenge the assumption behind the question. This can lead the person questioned to be accused of "dodging the question".

Form

Often the aim of dodging a question is to make it seem as if the question was answered. The person who asked the question feeling satisfied with the answer, despite being unconscious that they didn't get a proper answer.

The form of a dodged question, this example being "Why are you here?", could be:

• Refusing to answer ("No comment.")
• Changing the subject ("Your shoelace is undone.")
• Explaining redundant things to distract one's focus ("Well I arrived here 10 minutes ago and I decided that...")
• Creating an excuse not to answer ("I'm feeling sick, I can't answer now.")
• Repeating the question ("Why are you here?")
• Answering the question with another question ("Why do you think I'm here?")
• Answering things that weren't asked ("I'm in the corridor.")
• Questioning the question ("Are you sure that's relevant?")
• Challenging the question ("You assume I am here for a reason.")
• Giving an answer in the wrong context ("Because I was born.")