Display with alert the values stored in ViewModel - asp.net-mvc-4

Question

My application has many items in the viewModel and I would like to see those values displayed in an alert box so I can see what is actually stored in there. When trying to pass this view model back to my controller I am not seeing any values, instead I am getting an error that 'viewModel' is not defined.
Here is an example of my view model script
$(document).ready(function () {
function ViewModel() {
var self = this;
self.SectionId = ko.observable("");
self.SectionName = ko.observable("");
var SectionNames = {
Id: self.SectionId,
Name: self.SectionName
};
self.selectedSectionName = ko.observable();
self.SectionNames = ko.observableArray();
// Initialize the view-model for Work Sections
$.ajax({
url: '#Url.Action("GetSections", "Home")',
cache: false,
type: 'GET',
contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
data: {},
success: function (data) {
self.SectionNames(data);
}
});
var viewModel = new ViewModel();
ko.applyBindings(viewModel);
});
Similar to creating a global variable or class level variable I would like to have this viewModel contain all of the current values for all of my observable items.

Answer 1

Except for the missing closing tag (as mentioned by #CSharper) your code will not throw the error you speak of. The answer to your question lies either in that missing closing tag, or in another piece of code not shown.
Here's how you can check, by mixing your code (+ closing tag) with a $.ajax stub:
$.ajax = function() {}; // Noop stub.
$(document).ready(function () {
function ViewModel() {
var self = this;
self.SectionId = ko.observable("");
self.SectionName = ko.observable("");
var SectionNames = {
Id: self.SectionId,
Name: self.SectionName
};
self.selectedSectionName = ko.observable();
self.SectionNames = ko.observableArray();
// Initialize the view-model for Work Sections
$.ajax({
url: '#Url.Action("GetSections", "Home")',
cache: false,
type: 'GET',
contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
data: {},
success: function (data) {
self.SectionNames(data);
}
});
}
var viewModel = new ViewModel();
ko.applyBindings(viewModel);
});
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/knockout/3.2.0/knockout-min.js"></script>
$root = <code data-bind="text: ko.toJSON($root)"></code><br />
No errors on console.