I am trying to figure out where I can type my papers? Like word for mac?

Depends. You posted in an iWork forum. Does that mean you have iWork? If so use Pages. If you need more professional word processing then get Office 2011 for OS X. You can purchase and download it at www.mactopia.com. If you don't have iWork, then you can purchase it via the App Store - Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

For a thesis I would recommend using Word from Office 2011 for OS X. Pages in iWork doesn't have the horsepower. Besides Office is the recognized workhorse for college work.

A thesis is not that demanding. Just make sure you have citations covered, and even that can easily be managed manually.

Try LibreOffice [free] amongst the bountiful choices on the Mac. It uses both .doc and open doc (which Apple won't).

I wouldn't trust Pages for the one reason, we see too many people who have larger documents that spontaneously refuse to open and are totally unrecoverable. Apple has been doing nothing visible to address this and other issues for several years now.

Peter

You can get LibreOffice and much much more here:

LibreOffice 4.0.0.1

Apple does not yet have the software market locked up.

LibreOffice opens and saves in open standards, .doc and most formats available, unlike Pages. This gives you a much better chance of recovering your work should something go wrong or should Apple decide to abandon Pages because it isn't interested anymore.

Peter