Given a <textarea> with a default value as follows:
<textarea>Please describe why</textarea>
How do you clear the default value when the user clicks to edit the field?
Your JavaScript:
function clearContents(element) {
element.value = '';
}
And your HTML:
<textarea onfocus=clearContents(this);>Please describe why</textarea>
I assume you'll want to make this a little more robust, so as to not wipe user input when focusing a second time. Here are five related discussions & articles.
And here's the (much better) idea that David Dorward refers to in comments above:
<label for=explanation>Please describe why</label>
<textarea name=explanation id=explanation></textarea>
