The entity-relationship (ER) model and its accompanying ER diagrams are widely used for database design and systems analysis. Many books and articles just provide a definition of each modeling component and give examples of the pre-built ER diagrams. As a result, beginners in data modeling have a great deal of difficulty learning how to approach a given problem, what questions to ask in order to build a model, what rules to use while constructing an ER diagram, and why one diagram is better than another. The authors present step-by-step guidelines, a set of decision rules proven to be useful in building ER diagrams, and a case study problem with a preferred answer as well as a set of incorrect diagrams for the problem. These guidelines and decision rules have been successfully used in their beginning database management system course.