I wanted to tell my friend that I had skills in persuading people. I stood for 5 minutes just thinking whether I should say "**persuading skills**", "**persuasive skills**", or "**persuasion skills**". Also, "**manipulative skills**, **manipulation skills**, **manipulating skills**"? To decide which one to use, I went searching online dictionaries, and it just created further  confusion.


I have noticed that when the word has no verb form or its verb form is not very popular, we use its adjectival form before the word *skill* such as  
Political skill / athletic skill / artistic skill /mathematical skill / technical skill / tactical skill / social skill 

When the word has the gerund as a noun, then it is the word that precedes *skill* such as    
reading skill / writing skill / hunting skill / shooting skill / wrestling skill / fishing skill 

However, when the case is neither of those, confusion arises. In the following cases, how would you decide which one to use?

> 1. Persuading skill / persuasion skill / persuasive skill 
> 
> 2. Manipulating skill / manipulation skill / manipulative skill 
> 
> 3. Negotiating skill / negotiation skill / .. 
> 
> 4. Interpretive skill / interpretation skill
> 
> 5. Investigating skill / investigation skill / investigative skill 
> 
> 6. Navigating skill / navigation skill / navigational skill? 
> 
> 7. Performing skill / performance skill