diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c825689f1..523aabaf2 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -127,7 +127,8 @@ with open(targetfile, 'w', newline='') as outcsv:
         writer.writerow(row)
 ```
 
-You can also get back a pandas DataFrame object
+#### Pandas
+You can get back the cursor data as pandas DataFrame object.
 
 ```python
 from impala.util import as_pandas
@@ -135,6 +136,16 @@ df = as_pandas(cur)
 # carry df through scikit-learn, for example
 ```
 
+#### Json
+You also can get back the cursor as list of dict. Useful for build APIs that returns JSON objects.
+
+```python
+import json
+from impala.util import as_dict
+
+result = as_dict(cur)   
+data = json.dumps(result)
+```
 
 [pep249]: http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0249/
 [pandas]: http://pandas.pydata.org/
diff --git a/impala/util.py b/impala/util.py
index 95aa42cf5..d40705401 100644
--- a/impala/util.py
+++ b/impala/util.py
@@ -64,6 +64,18 @@ def as_pandas(cursor, coerce_float=False):
                                   coerce_float=coerce_float)
 
 
+def as_dict(cursor):
+    """
+    :param cursor: `HiveServer2Cursor`
+        The cursor object that has a result set waiting to be fetched.
+    :return: list of dict
+    """
+    columns = [col[0].lower() for col in cursor.description]
+    data = [
+        dict(zip(columns, row)) for row in cursor.fetchall()]
+    return data
+
+
 def _random_id(prefix='', length=8):
     return prefix + ''.join(random.sample(string.ascii_uppercase, length))