Two ways to "plugin" jQuery into a WordPress site

You're aware that WordPress is an impressive publishing platform. Its core strength lies in its near perfect separation of content, display, and functionality. Likewise, jQuery is an impressive JavaScript library with a lot of effort spent on making it work across platforms, be very flexible and extensible, and yet, elegantly degradable (if a user doesn't have JavaScript enabled for some reason).

You're aware that WordPress themes control the look and feel of your site and that WordPress plugins can help your site do more, but we're going to take a look at exactly how those two components work within the WordPress system and how to use jQuery from either a theme or a WordPress plugin. In doing so, you'll be better able to take advantage of them when developing your jQuery enhancements.

Speaking of jQuery enhancements, jQuery scripts can be turned into their own type of plugins, not to be confused with WordPress plugins. This makes the work...