The third essay of the Bloomsbury Handbook of rock music Research is provided by Taylor Myers and Brad Osborn, who initially examine the music theory, musicological and cultural studies literature that has emerged relating to rock scholarship over the last thirty plus years. Myers and Osborn then assert that a rhizomatic as opposed to arborescent approach is a more appropriate way of philosophically considering the genre formation of rock, which is regarded not as a ‘family tree’ with development branches, but a non-hierarchical construction, with multiple entry and exit points.  The essay subsequently provides a chronology of the literature that has helped define rock’s stylistic parameters, ranging from the work of Fabbri and Tagg in the early to mid 1980s, through to more contemporary scholarship.