AbstractUsing a traveling wave reduction technique, we have shown that Maccari equation, (2+1)-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation, medium equal width equation, (3+1)-dimensional modified KdV–Zakharov–Kuznetsev equation, (2+1)-dimensional long wave-short wave resonance interaction equation, perturbed nonlinear Schrödinger equation can be reduced to the same family of auxiliary elliptic-like equations. Then using extended F-expansion and projective Riccati equation methods, many types of exact traveling wave solutions are obtained. With the aid of solutions of the elliptic-like equation, more explicit traveling wave solutions expressed by the hyperbolic functions, trigonometric functions and rational functions are found out. It is shown that these methods provide a powerful mathematical tool for solving nonlinear evolution equations in mathematical physics. A variety of structures of the exact solutions of the elliptic-like equation are illustrated. Manuscript profile