Rhetoric is not a content area that contains a definite body of knowledge, like physics; instead, rhetoric might be understood as the study and practice of shaping content. Rhetoric is a primarily verbal, situationally contingent, epistemic art that is both philosophical and practical and gives rise to potentially active texts. When we speak about the art of rhetoric, then, we mean the faculty that humans have -- a teachable, improvable faculty -- for inventing constructions of "reality" that others may regard as such. In short, rhetoric is the art of knowledge-making. - Introduction.