diff --git a/src/__tests__/lib/categorizer.test.ts b/src/__tests__/lib/categorizer.test.ts
index 8618e7a7..0f1fafc0 100644
--- a/src/__tests__/lib/categorizer.test.ts
+++ b/src/__tests__/lib/categorizer.test.ts
@@ -14,6 +14,33 @@ jest.mock('groq-sdk', () => {
                         if (userMsg.includes('recursive')) {
                             return { choices: [{ message: { content: 'Recursion' } }] };
                         }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('lowercase-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: 'recursion' } }] };
+                        }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('punctuation-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: 'Recursion.' } }] };
+                        }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('whitespace-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: '  Differential   Calculus  ' } }] };
+                        }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('empty-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: '' } }] };
+                        }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('quoted-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: '"Recursion"' } }] };
+                        }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('ellipsis-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: 'Recursion…' } }] };
+                        }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('trailing-junk-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: 'Recursion) . .' } }] };
+                        }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('sql-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: 'SQL' } }] };
+                        }
+                        if (userMsg.includes('api-design-test')) {
+                            return { choices: [{ message: { content: 'API Design' } }] };
+                        }
                         return { choices: [{ message: { content: 'General' } }] };
                     })
                 }
@@ -37,4 +64,51 @@ describe('AI Categorizer Service', () => {
         const category = await categorizeDoubt('Random text without keywords', 'Other');
         expect(category).toBe('General');
     });
-});
+
+    describe('output normalization', () => {
+        it('should title-case a lowercase response', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('lowercase-test', 'Programming');
+            expect(category).toBe('Recursion');
+        });
+
+        it('should strip trailing punctuation', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('punctuation-test', 'Programming');
+            expect(category).toBe('Recursion');
+        });
+
+        it('should collapse extra whitespace and title-case multi-word responses', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('whitespace-test', 'Mathematics');
+            expect(category).toBe('Differential Calculus');
+        });
+
+        it('should fallback to General when the model returns an empty string', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('empty-test', 'Other');
+            expect(category).toBe('General');
+        });
+
+        it('should strip leading and trailing quotes', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('quoted-test', 'Programming');
+            expect(category).toBe('Recursion');
+        });
+
+        it('should strip non-ASCII trailing punctuation like ellipsis', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('ellipsis-test', 'Programming');
+            expect(category).toBe('Recursion');
+        });
+
+        it('should strip trailing parenthesis and spaced periods', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('trailing-junk-test', 'Programming');
+            expect(category).toBe('Recursion');
+        });
+
+        it('should preserve known acronyms instead of lowercasing them', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('sql-test', 'Databases');
+            expect(category).toBe('SQL');
+        });
+
+        it('should preserve acronym casing within multi-word responses', async () => {
+            const category = await categorizeDoubt('api-design-test', 'Programming');
+            expect(category).toBe('API Design');
+        });
+    });
+});
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/lib/ai/categorizer.ts b/src/lib/ai/categorizer.ts
index 314c0e3e..cf6c10c0 100644
--- a/src/lib/ai/categorizer.ts
+++ b/src/lib/ai/categorizer.ts
@@ -1,6 +1,25 @@
 import type Groq from 'groq-sdk';
 import { groq } from '@/lib/ai/groq-client';
-
+/**
+ * Normalizes a raw LLM category string into a consistent, title-cased,
+ * punctuation-free label so the same topic never gets stored under
+ * multiple distinct strings (e.g. "recursion" vs "Recursion.").
+ */
+function normalizeCategory(raw: string): string {
+    return raw
+        .trim()
+        .split(/\s+/)
+        .map(w => w.replace(/^[\p{P}\p{S}]+|[\p{P}\p{S}]+$/gu, ""))
+        .filter(Boolean)
+        .map(w => {
+            // Preserve likely acronyms (all-caps, 2+ letters) as-is
+            if (w.length > 1 && w === w.toUpperCase() && /[A-Z]/.test(w)) {
+                return w;
+            }
+            return w.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + w.slice(1).toLowerCase();
+        })
+        .join(" ");
+}
 /**
  * Automatically categorizes a doubt into a specific sub-topic based on its content and subject.
  */
@@ -33,7 +52,8 @@ Respond ONLY with the sub-topic name. No punctuation or explanation.`;
             max_tokens: 20,
         });
 
-        return completion.choices[0]?.message?.content?.trim() || "General";
+       const raw = completion.choices[0]?.message?.content?.trim() || "";
+      return normalizeCategory(raw) || "General";
     } catch (error) {
         console.error("Categorization failed:", error);
         return "General";