What is rhetoric anyways?

My understanding of rhetoric, which comes from our text book and conversations in class. I had never really heard of rhetoric in this context until this class. I think that rhetoric is a way to effectively illustrate a point to other people.  Whether it be through text, sound or illustrations and pictures.  It is a way to get your point across to people about a subject that is important to the writer. It is a carefully and thoughtfully composed writing that will help your readers understand what you're  writing about or convince them of something they are not educated about or undecided about. Rhetoric is used to provoke thought and opinions from your readers and expose them to your opinion or argument on certain subjects whether it is truthful or not. It seemsrhetoric uses whatever is necessary to get your point across. .

I went to Dictionary.com to see what the exact definition of the word rhetoric is so I might be able to better understand the word and its purpose. The definition in the dictionary is:

Noun

1) The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.

2) Language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.

I think my understanding of rhetoric lines up with the definition in the dictionary.  The word persuasive is used more than once, which tells me it may be used to dramatize or over exaggerate to get others to listen to and believe what you have to say, whether it is fictional or not.  I can see why this may be effective, but I prefer reading logical and factual writing. If rhetoric can be used following facts and logic, that is more convincing to me than something that has filler words such as could, likely, maybe and might. I'm more likely to trust and gain knowledge from reading things that are factual and have resources and truth.