The purpose of creating an outline is to organize your information (research) into a logical and coherent manner. It allows you to see how your paper wil take shape. More detail on your outline means the actual writing component of the paper should be easier: you have already laid out the flow and structure of what you are going to say!
Your outline is comprised of main ideas and supporting ideas that make up those main points. Main ideas are labeled with a Roman Numeral. Supporting ideas use capital letters and are indented. Sub-points under capital letters take italic numbers and also get indented. It looks like this:
I. MAIN IDEA
A. Subsidiary idea or supporting idea to I
B. Subsidiary idea or supporting idea to I
1. Subsidiary idea to B
2. Subsidiary idea to B
a) Subsidiary idea to 2
b) Subsidiary idea to 2
II. MAIN IDEA
A. Subsidiary or supporting idea to II
B. Subsidiary idea to II
C. Subsidiary idea to II
III. MAIN IDEA
Each letter portion of your outline will most likely end up being it's own paragraph or paragraphs. Within those paragraphs you have to have your evidence that supports your thesis. Whether you have direct quotes or statistics these paragraphs form the "meat" of your paper. You can use Noodletools to create your outline and drag individual notecards to the sections where they belong.
So let's say you have to write a paper on the Great Depression and it's lasting effect on America
INTRO (with Thesis)
I. Causes
A. Unregulated Stock Market
B. Panic
1. Black Tuesday
2.Debt Deflation
II. Responses
A. Creation of the FDIC
B. FDR and the New Deal
C. Cultural implications: Song, art, literature
III. Long term Impact/Fears
A. Stock Market Crash of 1989
B. Global Recession 2008
CONCLUSION (repetition of Thesis)