Tooltips are little "hint bubbles" that appear when you place your cursor over certain areas of the page. They exist to give you information about the item that your mouse is over.

Tooltips appear for many of the items in the Authoring panel. They are enabled by default. Items for which tooltips appear are normally given a light yellow color.

To disable tooltips, click "Turn Off ToolTips" in the upper-right hand part of the authoring panel. In the same picture, a tooltip is viewable when the mouse is over the link. Re-enabling tooltips is possible by clicking the same link when they are disabled.

As noted, tooltips are available for many parts of the authoring panel. Below, other tooltips are pictured.

Another tooltip:

Yet another:

Of course, more in-depth help is always available by clicking "Help."