title: Using JSON.NET to return ActionResult
body: <p>I'm trying to write a C# method that will serialize a model and return a JSON result.  Here's my code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    public ActionResult Read([DataSourceRequest] DataSourceRequest request)
      {
          var items = db.Words.Take(1).ToList();
          JsonSerializerSettings jsSettings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
          jsSettings.ReferenceLoopHandling = ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;
          var converted = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(items, null, jsSettings);
          return Json(converted, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I got the following JSON result when I go to Words/Read in Chrome:</p>
  
  <pre><code>"[{\"WordId\":1,\"Rank\":1,\"PartOfSpeech\":\"article\",\"Image\":\"Upload/29/1/Capture1.PNG\",\"FrequencyNumber\":\"22038615\",\"Article\":null,\"ClarificationText\":null,\"WordName\":\"the | article\",\"MasterId\":0,\"SoundFileUrl\":\"/UploadSound/7fd752a6-97ef-4a99-b324-a160295b8ac4/1/sixty_vocab_click_button.mp3\",\"LangId\":1,\"CatId\":null,\"IsActive\":false}
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I think the \" escaped quotes are a problem that occurs when you double serialize an object.  From other questions:
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22294473/wcf-json-output-is-getting-unwanted-quotes-backslashes-added">WCF JSON output is getting unwanted quotes &amp; backslashes added</a></p>
  
  <p>It definitely looks like I'm double serializing my object, since I first serialize using JSON.NET and then pass my result into the Json() function.  I need to manually serialize to avoid referenceloops, but I think my View needs an ActionResult.  </p>
  
  <p>How can I return an ActionResult here?  Do I need to, or can I just return a string?</p>