In this paper, we employ the Nevanlinna's value distribution theory to investigate the existence of meromorphic solutions of algebraic differential equations. We obtain the representations of all meromorphic solutions for a class of odd order algebraic differential equations with the weak 〈p,q〉and dominant conditions. Moreover, we give the complex method to find all traveling wave exact solutions of corresponding partial differential equations. As an example, we obtain all meromorphic solutions of the Kuramoto–Sivashinsky equation by using our complex method. Our results show that the complex method provides a powerful mathematical tool for solving great many nonlinear partial differential equations in mathematical physics.