Cut or tear an 8- to 10-inch section of crepe paper. Tie it to a spot about 1 foot from an end of the rope. Repeat until the whole length of the jump rope has crepe paper at 1-foot intervals.
Tie one end of the jump rope to the anchor point. The anchor point can be a fence post, a park bench, a bolt in the wall --- anything that won't allow the end of the rope to move.
Hold the opposite end of the rope and pull it taut.
Pluck the rope by pulling down and releasing it about 6 inches from the end you're holding. Observe the up-and-down motion of the crepe paper telltales as the disturbance propagates down the rope to the anchor point.
Snap the end you're holding rapidly up and down. Keep the rope taut during the snap. Again, you can see the transverse displacement by looking at the motion of the crepe paper telltales.
Set up a standing wave by moving your hand up and down. A standing wave occurs when sections of the rope appear to move about points that remain stationary. The stationary points are called nodes. When a standing wave is set up, the regions between the nodes will move in a repetitive pattern transversely to the length of the rope.