What are the 4 steps to balancing a chemical equation?

"I used to think that balancing equations is a haphazard, trial-by-error process, in which you either hit on the right coefficients or become lost forever. But the algebraic method is so helpful! That way I don't have to panic when I just can't seem to choose the right coefficients. Thank you, all of the contributors!"

"I was confused about how to do the balance equation because I can't understand in my school. But when I was searching for how to do the balance equation, I had seen this website wikiHow it was very, very helpful, now I learn how to do the equation, thank you wikiHow."

"I tutor secondary students, working inside classrooms and sometimes one-on-one/small groups. I have to cover all subjects in the curriculum. This helped me write some notes and provide examples, step by step, in balancing chemical equations. It was clear and completely explained how and why you must use coefficients, something that many students have difficulty applying. "

"What helped me in traditional method was the manner in which the equation was set up using a T-chart format to display the balancing of equation, then use of formula format a=1 a=c in algebraic method makes it easy to find value of the other variables."

"My science teacher always goes too fast for me and doesn't help explain it to me one-on-one, so this article really helped clear things up for me. I have a test on these tomorrow, and I really feel better about the whole thing! Thank you so much! "

"You method opens up many avenues of thought as to why it was done in such an order. Once you have gained the reasoning behind it, you can explore other challenging situations; i.e., what would be the consequences if reactant atoms appear to reduce?"

"This helped me to explain in a step-by-step manner for my struggling students. I put this on the board, and while I worked one-on-one with students this allowed the other students to work on their own. Loved it! Thank you for simplifying my time!"

"The steps are super easy to follow! This article is literally the best. My chem exam is tomorrow and I was seriously freaking out because I wasn't paying attention the day the teacher explained this to the class. Now I feel completely relieved."

"I am a tutor for high school Honors Chemistry. I only get an hour with each student per day. This program made studying for their exam much quicker and more organized, especially balancing the "H" and "O" last and the isolated elements first."

"When my teacher asked me to do it in class I wasn't able to, but this helped me a lot. The picture make the steps clearer and it made easier for me to balance the equations. Thanks a lot. It was very helpful."

"I am doing Science Olympiad, and I needed to know how to balance simple chemical equations. This was very helpful. The pictures especially helped, because I saw what I needed to do. Keep up the good work!"

"Basically every step was important. The traditional method was the better one, since I have algebraic expressions in the next term. But I will surely refer to this for studying. Thank you so much!"

"You've helped me balance an equation for the first time in my life, I never understood this in my schooldays in the 80s. Now I'm trying to help my little boy and you guys enabled me to."

"The article had explained an easier kind of way to balance a chemical equation after seeing and understanding the article and video I felt balancing a chemical equation was really easy."

"It's my first year doing chemical balances. I have always wanted to be a scientist. This article really helped me understand and gain more interest in chemical equations, thanks."

"I'm finally getting around to studying what I was supposed to learn in high school, but nobody could explain. Thanks to wikiHow and the author of this article, I understand it!"

"Actually, James Fodor of the Science of Everything suggested his listeners look at a simple equation on wikiHow. He explained it quite well, but your pictures were helpful."

"Really helpful to me. It was the simplest and easiest method to balance an equation. I would like to recommend it to others too. Thank you wikiHow for your help."

"The method of traditional balancing was really helpful. Thank you so much. The explanation is also easy to understand and the given pictures helped a lot."

"I found the traditional balancing method easier to follow and apply. Good tips on which element to start balancing. Make sure you read the whole thing!"

"This article was very helpful, as it gave me a much clearer understanding of balancing equations in chemistry. Thank you for this useful information."

"I didn't understand this topic, even from my book. This helped me a lot. Thank you, Bess Ruff, I couldn't have been able to do this without you."

"I didn't even know this subject, and bam! One minute of reading your beautiful article and I understood a whole lesson! Thank you so much!"

"Thank you so much! I needed extra credit points for my biology class, and this taught me how to balance a chemical equation in 10 minutes!"

"I didn't have any clue about balancing chemical equations and I have a test tomorrow. Thanks a lot for this article, it helped me so much!"

"What helped me was solving the equation step-by-step. It gave me a more clear vision how to do it. It's very simple thanks to this site."

"I knew traditional or hit and trial method from before, but I came to knew about the algebraic method today. Very grateful to the author."

"My friend tried to teach me, but this website helped me to understand how to balance equations. I ended up teaching my friend instead! "

"The algebraic method for balancing a skeleton chemical equation was of great help. It's a quite efficient method. Really fabulous!!!"

"This article helped me get good marks in my exams. Before I read it, I did not understand how to balance equations. Thanks, wikiHow!"