Lomeli 1

Diana Lomeli
English 106
Miss Brittany Biesiada
23 October 2014
Annotated Bibliography
Quignon, Pascale, et al. Genetics of Canine Olfaction and Receptor Diversity. Mammalian
Genome 23.1 (Feb. 2012): 132-143. Web of Science. Web. 21 October 2014.
This article discusses the smelling ability of dogs and the genetics behind it. It talks about
what genes are turned on and off in dogs DNA and why they have such a remarkable
smelling ability. The article also compares a dogs genetic make-up regarding olfaction to
other mammals, like humans and rats. It specifies the genes that work together to give
dogs a very keen sense of smell. I will use this article to analyze how the author portrays
information to his audience.

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Diana Lomeli
English 106
Miss Brittany Biesiada
23 October 2014
Genetics of Canine Olfaction and Receptor Diversity Research Analysis
The article Genetics of Canine Olfaction and Receptor Diversity, written by Pascale
Quignon, Maud Rimbault, Stphanie Robin, and Francis Galibert, has a very small introduction.
It is not a full introduction. It doesnt include all the moves from the John Swales CARS model.
Instead, it is very brief and acts more like an abstract, than an introduction.
The article introduction lacks a move 1. It does not establish a territory. The article
simply talks about how dogs are used because of their excellent olfactory detection
capabilities some dogs are specifically trained to find explosives, drugs, truffles, missing
individuals, and even cancer (Quignon et al. 132). There is no mention of claiming centrality,
making topic generalizations, or reviewing previous items of research.
A second move is present in the article. The author talks about how past researchers
have focused mainly on the [olfactory receptor] OR gene repertoire, first by the identification
of this repertoire and second by analyzing its diversity in different dog breeds (132). He talks
about how past researchers have approached this new discovery about the canines sense of
smell. Quignon used the second move to emphasize the research that others have done before
and what is mostly focused on. He implies that his article will also focus specifically on the
olfactory receptor and its gene expression.
The article, again lacks another move. It does not have a move 3. The author doesnt
explicitly state how he will go about explaining his article. He simply kind of implies that he will
talk about past research about canine olfaction. But he doesnt give a real outline to the specifics.

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The author uses the typical way of doing research for his article. It is very scholarly. He
includes pictures and diagrams of the research that he also cites. The author has a definitive way
of portraying the information. He did his research and started with a big topic, the olfactory
system, followed by little topics. To go along with what he was talking about, he added the
figures for the reader to visualize what he was saying. In his research, he starts with brief
explanation of what he will later discuss in his article. He starts by explaining what the olfactory
systems are and how they work (132-133). He begins narrowing down by discussing different
dog breeds and how their sense of smell differs. The authors shows a figure that depicts the
olfactory system of a dog and he includes all the names for the important things he discusses
later. This helps the reader to know what he is talking about. He then goes on to generalize to
mammals and other organisms with similar systems (133). He starts with very simple
explanations before he goes on to explain deeper and more detailed information.
The authors citing is very thorough. He cites after every bit of information that he
mentions that does not belong to him and his citing is correct. He also did his own research and
learned more about every little detail of knowledge he might need to write this article. In his
citations, he includes research about human olfactory and how receptors in the nose work (141).
The article uses APA citation, so they years are included in the citation and they are in blue to
emphasize and to tell apart from the information in the article. The article includes scholarly
articles that are well-cited and explained thoroughly in a way that is understandable. Even the
figures are cited from where they were originally obtained from.
The authors use of citations show that the author knows what he is talking about. He has
explained everything in a very detailed manner and when discussing his topic, he makes
connections to other research done. For example, in his article he talks a lot about the dogs

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amazing olfactory ability, but he goes further to compare their ability to that of a humans (135).
By doing this, he is showing that he can apply what he has cited to other research, thus proving
that he understands what he has cited and he has used it well. In the article, the author likes to
compare the canines olfaction to that of the mouse and rat (136). He also compares their sense
of smell to humans, so the reader has a sense of how drastic the change is and better understand
what the author is trying to say. The use of citations demonstrate that this research is part of a
bigger research that has already been done. Scientists have already figured this out and are trying
to find new ways to apply this information to the real world in some way that is beneficial to
everyone. The author knows this so he puts in his input and shows what he knows and has
researched and he educates others about what he knows on the subject of the canine sense of
smell.
The tone of this article is scholarly and professional. The author talks about the topic with
the appropriate jargon and language that should be used. In the sentence, The search for new
GPCRs potentially involved in olfaction in mouse lead to the identification of the TAAR
(Liberles and Buck 2006) (135), the author uses acronyms, to shorten long words and by doing
that, he shows that he knows what hes talking about because he uses it in the right context.
Another instance where the author shows his scholarly tone is when he references research that
has been done in the past. In the quote, A recent study of dog and wolf V1R pseudogenes
showed that dog pseudogenes are also pseudogenes in wolves, so it was hypothesized that the
decline of the dog V1R repertoire almost certainly did not occur in response to selective
pressures imposed during domestication (Young et al. 2010) (135). This research is part of a
larger conversation and this is shown in all the other research that other scientists have done. The
author talks about this research in an unbiased and professional tone. He does not, in any way,

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give off a tone that he disagree with this researchs hypothesis or method of conducting research.
He is not biased against any of the sources he cites in his articles. By doing this, he maintains the
professional tone of his article and gets his points across without leaning towards one side and
focusing more on arguing than actually presenting the information.
The authors writing style is formal and scientific. He writes as if he were writing a lab
report. Like mentioned before, the author uses jargon in the right places and doesnt have a bias.
There are charts and figure in the article that depict the information the author is presenting, like
a tree that shows all the receptors and how they relate to each other (134). He just reports the
findings in an unbiased and scholarly way. One example of when he does this is on page 137
when he describes a second experiment done by research that compared the smelling abilities of
different dog breeds. The author describes the process of the experiment in the unbiased,
scientific way it is supposed to be presented. The language is ideal for the occasion and does not
break character ever in the article. It has no emotion, just a writing style that is purely based on
getting facts across.
Design and format in this article are very logical. The author has a big topic, and then
narrows down the big topic into smaller, and more detailed subtopics. His main topic is the
genetics of canine olfaction and receptor diversity and his subtopics deal with the olfactory
systems, the canines olfaction, the different types of olfactory receptors, and gene expression in
the sense of smell (132-141).
The factors regarding tone, writing style, and format, tell us that the academic community
dealing with this issue is very well-informed. They can all agree on what is the cause of an
increased smelling ability in certain mammals. There is not controversy over who is right and
what ideas are wrong. Scientists can agree that To date, it is not yet possible to explain the

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different olfactory capacities of the different dog breeds. Studies have shown that canine OR
genes are highly polymorphic, but no relationship was established between the observed
polymorphisms and olfactory capacities (Robin et al. 2009; Tacher et al. 2005) (140). This
article demonstrates that researchers who have studied this before and are in agreement about the
information that has been gathered. The academic community is not attacking one another and
disagreeing and publishing opposing articles. This article pretty much sums up that everyone is
in agreement.
The thesis of this article is canine olfaction. It is canine olfaction and how it works when
it comes to looking at the genes for answers. It is repeated many times in the article. It is the title
and also in many sub titles. He discusses the olfactory system and how it works. Later he goes on
to talk about how genetics plays a part in everything. He also makes connections to other species
with similar features to those of dogs. The author starts off by talking about olfactory systems in
general and then gets more specific. The article makes a reference to Figure 1, which is a picture
of a dogs nose, when he states that The glomeruli make synapses with the apical dendrites of
the olfactory bulb cells. The axons of the olfactory bulb cells form the lateral olfactory tract that
reaches the cortex (133).
The article then goes on to talk about the different types of receptors and what they are
used for. Certain receptors may be used by other species beyond canines and others are solely
used in a canines olfactory system (134). He repeats this when he mentions that Two different
studies have shown that the FPR family members are expressed by sensory neurons of the mouse
vomeronasal organ (Liberles et a. 2009; Riviere et al. 2009) (135). In this quote, the author talks
about the mouse and its system, and he later goes on to explain why this relates to a dogs sense
of smell (135).

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In the paragraph following, the author discusses the canine olfactory receptor repertoire.
Names of different genomes and where they are located and what they are used for are
mentioned in this part of the article. A figure is included to provide a visual and to place each
genome in its corresponding place (136). The section is brief and talks mostly about the different
genomes and what other species share common genetics with the dog (137).
The author includes a section on polymorphism in the in the canine olfactory receptor. He
talks about previous experiments that have been done on dogs and even humans to pick out these
polymorphisms, which are different phenotypes that can show up in different species (137).
Studying these polymorphisms help scientists learn more about a dogs sense of smell and that
there may be many variations to it.
When the author goes on to talk about gene expression and odorant specificity, he admits
that what scientists know about this topic has been derived from experiments on other animals,
not dogs, for ethical reasons (139). Scientists have cleverly taken research from other
experiments and applied it to the dog. The author states, It is then easy to hypothesize that for
the newborn rats that are blind and deaf, some ORs may be more important for mother-newborn
communication. (139). They have found out that some receptors are specifically made to smell,
depending on what the animal needs it for.
The author ends by summing up everything he discussed in his article. He reiterates
information he has previously mentioned, like a sentence he had mentioned before in his opening
statement when he says The great olfaction sense in dogs is used in many ways (139). He gives
credit to other scientist before him and wraps up their research by showing charts and graphs of
previously made data. In his ending sentence, he states that so far, scientists have done a great
job doing their work, but that they should probably tackle only one question at a time (140).

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This article did succeed its purpose of informing. It did a good job presenting the
information to a general audience. He uses good charts that depict information crucial to the
reader and thoroughly explains it in detail (132-149). He kept biases out of his article and
maintained a professional tone throughout the whole article to avoid swaying his audience. He
correctly and successfully presented the information in a way that was intended to inform a
greater community interested in this subject.