How do I add an item to the TOC?

Rather than adding an item to the Table of Contents, you should apply the appropriate style to that item in the body of the document and then select the Table of Contents and press F9 to update it.

It sounds as if what you have isn't an automatic TOC, but a manual one. Have you formatted your headings, in the body of the document, using heading styles? In that case, you can easily insert a TOC via References tab | Table of Contents; be sure to select one of the automatic table of contents formats. (For more control, you can use the Custom Table of Contents command.) See also http://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/tableofcontents.html.

Hi Doug! Thank you so much for responding. I did exactly as you said. I opened the document and added the information I wanted . I right clicked and added the style and updated the table and got a message saying

The current document does not contain a table of contents field that can be updated automatically.

So now my question would be how do I convert it to it being where it can be automatically updated if I need to make changes in the future. And how do I manually update it in the meantime?

I appreciate any assistance or suggestions you have as this is foreign to me until I get to start classes or do more self learning through the internet.