The ORM Foundation

Ken, I'm no expert in this area - I have no idea even what the formal definition of an entity model is (I believe that came "after my time" in school).

My point was simply that, to whatever extent there's a distinction between an entity model and a set of "ad hoc classes", then what one designes in the EF designer is a "real" entity model, and not just some "ad-hoc classes". That is, it's as much an entity model as any entity model can be.

 John,
We were beginning to drift off topic so I have moved our posts to a new section entitled "Data Quality" 

John Saunders:

I have no idea even what the formal definition of an entity model is

Unless you specify some quality rules then there isn't any distinction between an entity model, a real entity model and a bunch of ad-hoc entities.
They are just loose words that name an informal arrangement of diagrams.