You can ask an expert a question at any point once you have logged in. Questions can either be public - aimed at no expert in particular - or they can be directed to an individual expert.

You can either pay for an answer to your question, or you can ask a "free" question by simply saying that you are prepared to pay £0 for an answer. However, you are likely to get more responses to your question if you are prepared to pay for an answer to it.

The very first time you ask a question, you must first read and agree to our terms and conditions for inquisitors - be sure that you have fully read and understood our terms before proceeding.

If you have not already used the browser to select the category which applies to your question, you should do this before entering your question. You can change the category of the question by clicking on the displayed category name.

There are four ways of asking a question:

• You can accept the first answer that is submitted.
• You can review the experts willing to answer your question.
• You can review the answers submitted to your question. Note however that this option might not illicit many responses since experts might be reluctant to submit a full answer knowing that you might elect to ignore their submission.
• You can invite experts to quote you a price to answer your question.

When entering the text of your question, you can attach a document or file to the question by clicking on the icon; experts and potential experts will be able to download the file(s) you have uploaded when viewing the question. If your browser does not support JavaScript then you will need to tick the relevant checkbox (note that you may need to click on the Show Options button to do this), and you will then be able to attach a document or file to your question after you have clicked on the Ask button.

At the same time you can decide whether to set an expiry time/date for your question; whether you want only all experts to answer it or just your favourite experts; whether you want to prevent your least favourite experts from answering it; whether you want the question to be answered with a live consultation; whether you want to restrict full details of your question to experts eligible to answer it; and finally whether you want your question added to the BumperBrain Library of Questions (not all of these options are available if your question is directed at a specific expert). Note that if you choose to restrict full details of your question to eligible experts, this restriction does not apply once it has been answered and added to the BumperBrain Library of Questions.

You do not have to display these options for every question you ask. In the Personal Preferences page of the Settings menu, you can select options and then choose not to confirm them each time. If you wish to change any of the options for any given question, you can click on the Show Options button.

Once you have clicked on the Ask button your question will be placed in your list of outstanding questions. From there you can review your question at any time by clicking on the question title. Whilst reviewing a question you can click on the icon to delete it (although you should of course do this with extreme caution!), you can click on the menu item to list (and when appropriate edit) the experts who are eligible to answer it, or you can click on the menu item to list questions in the BumperBrain Library of Questions that are similar to your question.