title: Retrieve value from input object plain js
body: <p>I have the following field, </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;input id="department" value="finance"/&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm trying to create an object variable containing the field in plain old javascript like so.</p>
  
  <pre><code>var $field = $(document.getElementById("department"));
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm then trying to pull the value from the field variable, however it's failing. </p>
  
  <pre><code>$field.value;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong? </p>