The layout of the paper can/ begin with the command
\pagestyle{style/}
With plain (or simply by leaving \pagestyle out)
the pagenumber is at the bottom of the paper.
With using headings the headline of the chapter and the pagenumber
appear at the top of the paper.
Empty of course keeps top and bottom of the page empty.
\maketitle creates the frontpage and depends on your
document style. It can contain \title{text}, \author{names},
\thanks{text} to whomever you want - and \date{text}, of
course, creates the date. If you leave it out, the computer puts the
relevant time automatically.