How do I launch a dialog with a button?

How do I launch a dialog with a button?


This is my first day with jquery, and I can't figure out this simple
task! I'd like to launch a dialog when a user clicks a button (or a
link, not sure what to use).
This is what I'm doing now:
With this the dialog doesn't launch from the button and the content
displays on the page. If I remove the bottom $
("newusrprizebtn").onclick({ $("#newusrprize").dialog('open'); });
then the dialog pops up on page load.
<script type="text/javascript">
    {literal}
        $("#newusrprize").dialog({
            autoOpen: false,
            height: 494,
            width: 800,
            bgiframe: true,
            modal: true,
            buttons: {
                Ok: function() {
                    $(this).dialog('close');
                }
            }
        });
        $("newusrprizebtn").onclick({
            $("#newusrprize").dialog('open');
        });
    {/literal}
</script>
Thank you so much!
PS : the literal code is because I'm using Smarty templates.