How do I get the value of a textbox using jQuery?

I can get the element like this $("#txtEmail") but I’m not sure how to get the actual value.

There’s a .val() method:

If you’ve got an input with an id of txtEmail you can use the following code to access the value of the text box:

$("#txtEmail").val()

You can also use the val(string) method to set that value:

$("#txtEmail").val("something")