So I've started my paper

[Megas Methuselah]

That's a typical continental Europe thing. I know it's a basic requirement in France and from what I've been told, Germany and Italy too. I'm pretty sure it's the same in Hax' country.

Bah!

Edit : And as Fragony pointed out, I think you need to find a topic, what we frenchmen call a problematic. I'm not sure what are the expectations in high school, but later on, you will have to ask a question, and work your way to an answer. Papers usually have to answer something, to validate or invalidate an hypothesis. Hence why the whole first part seems a bit off the track.

Yeah, the Thesis Statement. The heart of every essay, the thesis statement is usually in the essay's introductory paragraph. The essay itself should revolve entirely around the thesis. In fact, I heard that the term "essay" has French roots (stand proud, Meneldil ), in that an essay tries (essayer; I think I butchered that French word, as I can't seem to remember my French too much at the moment) to answer a question.