A note on the improved tan(φ(ξ)/2)-expansion method

Recently, Manafian etal. proposed and developed an effective method named the improved tan(phi(xi)/2)-expansion method (ITEM) to seek exact solutions of some partial differential equations. In this article, by making use of general solutions to certain Riccati equation with constant coefficients, general solutions of certain ordinary differential equation under considered by ITEM is presented. In virtue of these general solutions, ITEM can be simplified. The simplified ITEM is similar to certain modified extended tanh method. We also give some remarks on ITEM. The nonlinear Kundu-Eckhaus equation is used to be an example. (C) 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.