This will do what you want, first I assigned the elements via a filter : elements = $('h3').filter('.example');
Then I scrolled around the items found and output them to a span for debugging. elements.each(function() { $('#Output').html($('#Output').html() + "<br>" + $(this).html()); }); Here's the entire test code : <html> <head> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/ libs/jquery/1.3/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ elements = $('h3').filter('.example'); elements.each(function() { $('#Output').html($('#Output').html() + "<br>" + $(this).html ()); }); }); </script> </head> <body> <h3 class="example"> LALALA </h3> <h3 class="notexample"> NOT example :) </h3> <h3 class="example"> Blub </h3> <br><br> <span id="Output"> </span> </body> </html> On Jan 2, 8:25 pm, jason <jasona...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hey, > > was wondering if anyone could help me with a basic JQ question. Ok so > I am trying to select each element that has a certain class on my > page, and then use what is inside of the <h3 class="example"> I am > selecting to populate a drop down select box with the id of > deptFilter. (with each result found inside of the H3, wrapped in > <option> tags.) I am having trouble understanding how I actually store > the variables found in each H3 with the class of "example". > > Any help would be greatly appreciated.