Chapter 3: Normalizing Data

Now that we are familiar with the top-down approach from the previous chapter, we will switch to a bottom-up approach: normalizing data. The goal is again to create an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD). The difference is that we will now worry about all the details. Having learned a lot about the system to be created using a top-down approach and asking any questions as required, we will now make a conceptual model.

In this chapter, you will learn about the following topics:

• When to use a normalization strategy
• Why avoiding redundancy is important
• The formal steps of normalization
• An alternative approach to normalizing data
• Integrating separate results