title: The purpose of Include() in ASP.NET MVC + Entity Framework
body: <p>In the controllers generated by Visual Studio, as well as the sample application (ContosoUniversity), the Index action always has something like</p>
  
  <pre><code>var departments = db.Departments.Include(d =&gt; d.Administrator);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What's the difference between that and </p>
  
  <pre><code>var departments = db.Departments;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>First I suspected that the first one (with Include) enables the view to retrieve department.Administrator. But the second one (without Include) seems to be able to do that as well.</p>