balancing water

[Jennifer Lathrop 1F]

I'm not sure exactly how to word this, but when balancing a redox reaction that takes place in a basic solution, water is placed on both sides of the reaction. In the solution manual, sometimes the water is cancelled out, and other times water is kept on both sides of the equation. Is there a reason for this? If so, what is it?

[Chem_Mod]

Could you provide the question # so we can look at those as examples.

[Andre_Galenchik_2L]

If there is water on both sides, just cancel them out till there is only water on one side. The solutions manual most likely just wants you to see how much water they added to both sides while trying to find the answer.

[Jennifer Lathrop 1F]

6K.5 in 7th addition,
in part a) for the oxygen reaction, water on the right side cancels out and gets removed, leaving only water on the left side.
for the bromide reaction, 3H2O is on the left with 6H2O on the right, leaving them on both sides. It seems like you should be able to cancel out the left side to only have water on the right
my question is, why is that? Does it make a difference in your final answer? Can you do it either way?

[LilyL1C]

whether you cancel out your water molecules early on or later doesn't make a difference in the final answer, and you can do it either way.

[Abby-Hile-1F]

I'm pretty sure if you r final answer has water on both sides you can cancel out no matter what, since that gives the same but a simpler answer.

[Jennifer Lathrop 1F]

thank you!

[Pritish Patil 1K]

One can cancel out the waters or simply add the proper amount in the beginning.

[Luc Lorain 1L]

We just want to simplify the equation, similar to how we cancel out any intermediates in a kinetics reaction.