Is the root chord the dist. from leading edge to trailing edge where it's connected to the plane? also what is the tip chord?

Yes, the root chord is the measurement from L.E. to T.E at the wing root.
The Tip chord is the same mesurement at the wing tip.
If you take the average of those two measurements multiplied by the wing span, you get the total wing area.
Neat Huh?

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The root chord is the dimension from leading to trailing edge -at the center of the airplane-, in the top view.
With a tapered wing and a wide fuselage, the dimension at the fuselage side can be different than at the center of the wing.

Thanks for the info. I saw this somewhere and was interested in it's meaning.

To give a bit more detail on the tip chord............

Tip shape causes some people confusion. For example, me, back when I first started messing with this stuff.

You can often simply measure the chord as far out as the LE and TE are still straight. Using that as the tip chord works ok for most applications.

And you can almost always look at the planform of the wing and decide what area is tip area and where that starts. If you think about it, that tip area could be considered to be in a "box" that'd be there if the wing LE and TE went straight instead of curving around that silly tip, right. So think about how much area that tip shape fills up in that imaginary box. And if it appears to be about half, then estimate that into your figuring. You won't be exactly right, but that type of estimation will give you better figures for area, span, and taper ratio than you'll need.