# Prefer the properties function over individual property lookup when retrieving all property values
<a name="best-practices-content-12"></a>

 The `properties()` function is used to return a map containing all properties for an entity, and is much more efficient than returning properties individually. 

 Assuming your `Person` nodes contain 5 properties, `firstName`, `lastName`, `age`, `dept`, and `company`, the following query would be preferred: 

```
MATCH (n:Person)
WHERE n.dept = 'AWS'
RETURN properties(n) as personDetails
```

 Rather than using: 

```
MATCH (n:Person)
WHERE n.dept = 'AWS'
RETURN n.firstName, n.lastName, n.age, n.dept, n.company
    
=== OR ===
    
MATCH (n:Person)
WHERE n.dept = 'AWS'
RETURN {firstName: n.firstName, lastName: n.lastName, age: n.age, 
department: n.dept, company: n.company} as personDetails
```