Question

I am wondering how I would place an asterisk by a required field and also have the jquery validation message also there. I am a complete noob at jquery so I am kind of confused about how to do this?

Answer 1

here is what can sum it up

first part:
How to implement asterix by required field

Option1:
define asterix in display name

[DisplayName("User Name *")]  //this will be defined in entity or model
<%= Html.LabelFor(x=>x.Name) %> //access data

Option 2:
using label and add manually span with asterix

[DisplayName("User Name")]
<%= Html.LabelFor(x=>x.Name) %><span>*</span>

for second part( validation using jquery)
check this link it is guide how to implement client side validation using jquery:

http://weblogs.asp.net/nmarun/archive/2010/03/21/mvc-2-jquery-client-side-validation.aspx