while trying to learn sql i came across "Learn SQL The Hard Way" and i started reading it. Everything was going fine then i thought ,as a way to practice, to make something like given example in the book (example consists in 3 tables pet,person,person_pet and the person_pet table 'links' pets to their owners). I made this: report table +----+-------------+ | id | content | +----+-------------+ | 1 | bank robbery| | 2 | invalid | | 3 | cat on tree | +----+-------------+ notes table +-----------+--------------------+ | report_id | content | +-----------+--------------------+ | 1 | they had guns | | 3 | cat was saved | +-----------+--------------------+ wanted result +-----------+--------------------+---------------+ | report_id | report_content | report_notes | +-----------+--------------------+---------------+ | 1 | bank robbery | they had guns | | 2 | invalid | null or '' | | 3 | cat on tree | cat was saved | +-----------+--------------------+---------------+ I tried a few combinations but no success. My first thought was SELECT report.id,report.content AS report_content,note.content AS note_content FROM report,note WHERE report.id = note.report_id but this only returns the ones that have a match (would not return the invalid report). after this i tried adding IF conditions but i just made it worse. My question is, is this something i will figure out after getting past basic sql or can this be done in simple way? Anyway i would appreciate any help, i pretty much lost with this. Thank you. EDIT: i have looked into related questions but havent yet found one that solves my problem. I probably need to look into other statements such as join or something to sort this out.