The advantage of the long version is that you are guided in an explicit fashion through the process. Unfortunately you can't see the whole thing on one screen. The short version can be viewed on a most computer screens. I expect you to go through the detailed example and then review the process with the abbreviated version. This is the long version of the oxidation of iron metal in nitric acid.
Iron goes from metal to an oxide.
Now we will balance each of the half-equations. We'll do this by balancing, in the following order, the major element, oxygen, hydrogen, and electrons. Let's balance the Iron in the first half-equation. Now we balance the oxygen atoms in the iron equation by adding sufficient water molecules to the opposite side of the equation. Now we'll finish by balancing the charge in the equation with electrons.