First steps:

In fact the basics of latex are easy to understand. You will allways meet following construct:

\control sequence[command]{options}

e.g.: \documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}

Some control sequences have just options:

e.g.: \begin{document}

You will get a framework like this:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}

\title{}
\author{}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}

\end{abstract}

\section{}

\end{document}

At the beginning you should work with the menus Latex and Wizard to avoid bad insertions. For the most common tasks this should be enough.

Later you will learn something about declarations:

A declaration is a LaTeX command that does not act on an argument, but which changes the way LaTeX prints the following text or which changes the value or meaning of some command.