Z scores are a special application of the transformation rules. The z score for an item, indicates how far and in what direction, that item deviates from its distribution's mean, expressed in units of its distribution's standard deviation. The mathematics of the z score transformation are such that if every item in a distribution is converted to its z score, the transformed scores will necessarily have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one.

Z scores are sometimes called "standard scores". The z score transformation is especially useful when seeking to compare the relative standings of items from distributions with different means and/or different standard deviations.

Z scores are especially informative when the distribution to which they refer is normal. In every normal distribution, the distance between the mean and a given Z score cuts off a fixed proportion of the total area under the curve. Statisticians have provided us with tables indicating the value of these proportions for each possible Z score.