[Creating a local collection of professional reports. A stake in the engineering of diploma education and research in continuing education].
The question of the dissertation written during the training is tackled through the entry key offered by the professional dissertations written during the training courses leading to qualification in the framework of a university department of vocational training. 72 professional dissertations, defended between 1993 and 1996, were analysed on the basis of observation sheets filled out by the directors. In reference to the semiotic approach which provides relevant theoretical and methodological materials for the problem posed, we shall show the interest of considering that these documents are, above all, "object-speeches" and must therefore be studied as such. According to the demands to be determined, related to the types of speeches to deliver, the professional dissertations considered as written traces reconstituting the practices and praxis which found them, as well on the professional as on the scientific level, can provide indications for training, in the area of research as well as in the one of praxeology. The written document is thought of as an object of transition from practice to professional praxis, rallying the scientific praxis which is expressed particularly in the writing work.