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A lot of what you'll see in articles (and there are a lot of them out there) is a discussion of five normal forms. So fifth normal form is touted as an ideal. In practice, most data modelers strive for third normal form. Some people go further and do something called Boyce-Codd Normal Form which falls between third and fourth normal forms. Without writing detailed examples, normalization is not something that can be explained easily and a good google will turn up all you need to get a feel for it anyway.
Beware of anyone insisting that the physical design must be in fifth normal form. This person has no place in the real world and has never actually seen it. For this group, and I have known a couple, the model is more important than the problem it is supposed to solve.
By the way, I mentioned "physical design". If anyone is serious about learning more about this area and data modeling in general, make sure you understand the difference between logical and physical design. This question comes up a lot in job interviews, at least when data modeling is part of the job.
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