By default, animations are queued, but you can disable this by setting the queue property to false. Unqueued animations start immediately. Subsequent queued animations are not deferred for unqueued animations. The width animation begins at the same time the fadeIn() effect begins.
<script type="text/javascript"> $(".target").fadeIn(500) .animate({"width":"+=100"}, {queue:false, duration:1000}) .fadeOut(500); </script>