  Our goal is to find closed form analytic expressions for the solitary waves
of nonlinear nonintegrable partial differential equations. The suitable
methods, which can only be nonperturbative, are classified in two classes.
  In the first class, which includes the well known so-called truncation
methods, one \textit{a priori} assumes a given class of expressions
(polynomials, etc) for the unknown solution; the involved work can easily be
done by hand but all solutions outside the given class are surely missed.
  In the second class, instead of searching an expression for the solution, one
builds an intermediate, equivalent information, namely the \textit{first order}
autonomous ODE satisfied by the solitary wave; in principle, no solution can be
missed, but the involved work requires computer algebra.
  We present the application to the cubic and quintic complex one-dimensional
Ginzburg-Landau equations, and to the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation.
