First of all note that with sweeping your private key on an online device, you would defeat the purpose of a paper wallet.
A paper wallet should be created offline and your private key should never connect to the interent.
Anyway, let's go for your questions.
3. My first question is... When I created my new wallet in Electrum it shows approximately 30 addresses starting with "bc1" in the address tab, so I assume those are all my new addresses that can be used for different purposes within my single newly created Electrum wallet, correct?
Right. All those addresses are yours and all are generated from your seed phrase.
4. Second question... When playing around with the sweep function, the window that pops up where I can enter my private key starting with "5" doesn't require a pre-script before it, correct?
Just enter your private key. That will be enough.
5. Third question... In the address field at the bottom of the sweep window where the funds are being sent/swept to, Electrum defaults to the first address from my list of 30 addresses within my Electrum wallet, and since that is an online transaction I will be charged a fee, correct?
Right. You can select each of your address you want the fund to be sent to.
And since you will make a transaction, you have to pay the transaction fee.
6. Fourth question... My intention is to send the money to a friend, so if I sweep the paper private key into my newly created wallet in Elecrum resulting in a transaction fee, then I would pay a second transaction fee to send the funds from my Electrum wallet to my friends address.
Right. If you sweep the private key and then make another transaction, you will have to pay fee for two transactions.
Instead, you can import your private key and then make the transaction.
Note that with sweeping your private key, you make a transaction and send the fund from your paper wallet to a new wallet, but if you import your private key, you don't make any transaction.