Try to Avoid Using "According To"

I attended a seminar last week and the speaker basically over used the words "According To". I think this is very bad, but of course he will disagree. The fundamental problem is you lose the accountability if you use too many other people statement to make it a point. It ends up your audience will think like this - since there are so many "according to", why do I still want to listen to you? I may as well listen to the person that you rely on.

You can use according to, but try to give your comment or argument towards the statement that made by another person whether you disagree or agree and also tells the reasons why. Please don't ever use that to support your idea. The even better what you can do is re-paraphrase without using the  words "according to" because somehow I just feel that the words "according to" try to push away the responsibility to someone else. Don't you think so? For example, you can said something like this: Person X says this too and I totally agree with that because [reason1], [reason 2] and [reason x] rather that using the words "according to".

Even from your day-to-day work, whenever you give a talk, speak to your clients or even talk to your boss, you should always try to avoid using "According To". This is basically to make sure all the words that come from your mouth, you're responsible for that and have 100% confident on it. Then, people will only trust you and believe in you.

So, what do you think? How often do you use the words "according to"? In fact, it is very "nice words" to use especially if you want to push away responsibility and you do not want to own your words, isn't it?