However, I for some reason wasn't thinking that there would be multiple forms, and have each input an id, resulting in multiple elements having the same id. Here is how you can get value: function outputTranslated () { $ ('#toBeTranslatedForm').submit (function () { var textareaval = $ ('#userInput').val (); alert (textareaval); }); } You can do the same for selection box by adding this line after the textareaval variable definition in the code above: Get Selected Checkboxes Value Using jQuery.