In the first column I wrote for SQL Server Magazine (SQL by Design, "Why You Need Database Normalization," March 1999), I set out some rules to live by for database design. Recently, I wrote a six-part series about data modeling in which I revisited the topic of data normalization. While developing the sample SQLmag database in these articles, I showed how to normalize data. (See the sidebar "The SQLmag Database DDL Script File," page 75, for information about how to get a copy of the Data Definition Language—DDL—file that created this database.)

When y...