The table shown lists dentist/patient appointment data. A patient is given an appointment at a specific time and date with a dentist located at a particular surgery. On each day of patient appointments, a dentist is allocated to a specific surgery for that day.

What will be an ideal response?

(a) The table shown is susceptible to update anomalies. Provide
examples of insertion, deletion, and update anomalies.
The student should provide examples of insertion, deletion and update anomalies using the data
shown in the table. An example of a deletion anomaly is if we delete the details of the dentist
called ‘Helen Pearson’, we also loose the appointment details of the patient called ‘Ian MacKay’.
(b) Describe and illustrate the process of normalizing the table shown in Figure 14.19 to
3NF. State any assumptions you make about the data shown in this table.
The student should state any assumptions made about the data shown in the table. For example,
we may assume that a patient is registered at only one surgery. Also, a patient may have more
than one appointment on a given day.