A function for making your own, custom animations. The key aspect of this function is the object of style properties that will be animated, and to what end. Each key within the object represents a style property that will also be animated (for example: "height", "top", or "opacity"). Note that properties should be specified using camel case eg. marginLeft instead of margin-left. The value associated with the key represents to what end the property will be animated. If a number is provided as the value, then the style property will be transitioned from its current state to that new number. Otherwise if the string "hide", "show", or "toggle" is provided, a default animation will be constructed for that property. A set of style attributes that you wish to animate, and to what end. (optional) A string representing one of the three predefined speeds ("slow", "normal", or "fast") or the number of milliseconds to run the animation (e.g. 1000). (optional) The name of the easing effect that you want to use (Plugin Required). (optional) A function to be executed whenever the animation completes. $("p").animate({ height: 'toggle', opacity: 'toggle' }, "slow"); $("p").animate({ left: 50, opacity: 'show' }, 500); An example of using an 'easing' function to provide a different style of animation. This will only work if you have a plugin that provides this easing function (Only 'linear' is provided by default, with jQuery). $("p").animate({ opacity: 'show' }, "slow", "easein");