How To Model Data: Design Tables, Keys, Relationships, and Schemas That Make SQL Work

By Tiye Baldwin-Anderson

Data modeling is where good SQL begins.

You can write a perfectly valid query and still struggle to get the right answer if the data was not modeled well in the first place. How To Model Data is a practical guide to designing relational data structures that make SQL easier to write, easier to understand, and more reliable in production.

Using clear language and real business examples, this book shows you how to move from messy real-world information to clean relational design by asking the right questions:

What does one row mean?What identifies it?Which facts belong together?How are entities related?What must be preserved over time?What choices will make future SQL easier-or harder?

Inside, you'll learn how to:

identify entities and attributes;define table grain clearly;choose keys and understand candidate keys;model one-to-many, many-to-many, one-to-one, and self-referencing relationships;use normalization to improve clarity without overcomplicating the schema;model time, status, history, subscriptions, appointments, hierarchies, and event data;spot bad-model "fingerprints" that show up later in SQL; andbuild schemas that support cleaner JOINs, safer aggregation, and more trustworthy results.

This book is designed for developers, analysts, students, DBAs, and self-taught SQL learners who want a stronger foundation in relational thinking. It does not assume advanced theory. It focuses on practical modeling decisions and their SQL consequences.

If you want to design tables, keys, relationships, and schemas that make SQL work, this book will show you how.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HJMDCXLN
• ISBN13: 9798173656186
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 265 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.6" x 6.0"