jQuery '$(this)'

Question

Why and when would you use $(this) instead of this?

Answer 1

You use this when you are in the scope of a DOM object (or any other object for that matter)

For example:

$('a').click(function(){
     var href = $(this).prop('href'); //refers to to this a tags href
     var href1 = this.href; //ALSO refers to to this a tags href
})