Jquery not working for me.

Jquery not working for me.

I have installed jquery renamed it to jquery.js and have put it in its own directory pointed my page to it and nothing. Then I tried the google hosted version of the file and  still no luck. I have tried more than a dozen plugins and I don't know what it could  be. I am developing on local host using xamp server and im also using windows 7 if that is of any help. I am  trying to put a slideshow/coinslider and to validate information to make my site more dynamic. If anyone has any suggestions please help me. 

p.s. I am real noob to javascript and jquery i think i get the basics but for what i need it I don't need to be a guru or should I learn javascript before anything. Thanks for any response. Sorry if I an naive but we all have to start at some point.