Experimental research was carried out on 11 different clayey materials to determine the main characteristics of the drying and wetting paths and the influence of initial state and other factors. Normally consolidated paths are shown to have a large saturated domain, in which a negative pressure is equivalent to an isotropic stress increase; such paths can be derived from correlations with the liquid limit. On the other hand, the behavior of overconsolidated or dried samples is largely dependent on the range of stresses and negative pressures. Key words : suction, unsaturated soils, drying, wetting, correlations, models.