What is Data Normalization?
TL;DR: Data normalization is the process of organizing data to reduce redundancy and improve consistency. In databases, it involves splitting data into related tables. In data analysis, it means scaling values to a common range.
In database design, normalization follows forms (1NF, 2NF, 3NF) that progressively eliminate data duplication. In statistics, normalization scales data to 0-1 or standardizes to mean=0, std=1, making different variables comparable.