A skeleton equation shows just the reactants and products whereas a balanced equation shows the

A skeleton equation shows just the reactants and products whereas a balanced equation shows the relative amounts of, or proportion between, reactants and products.

Explanation:

The skeleton equation shows which reactants are being used and which products are being formed.

The reactants are shown on the left and the products are shown on the right side of the equations, separeted by an arrow.

For example, the skeleton equation to obtain water is:

H₂ (g) + O₂ (g) → H₂O (g)

From it you know that hydrogen and oxygen react to form water, yet you do not know in which ratio they do it.

Then, you balance the equation, adding the appropiate coefficients, to make the number of atoms of each kind on the reactant side equal to the number of the same kind of atoms on the product side.

This is, for the example of water, the number of hydrogen atoms on the left must equal the number of atoms of hygrogen on the right side, and the number of oxygen atoms of the left must equal the number of oxygen atoms on the right.

For the water example that is:

2H₂ (g) + O₂ (g) → 2H₂O (g)

Showing that 2 molecuies of hydrogen (or 4 atoms) react with 1 molecule of oxygen (or 2 atoms) to produce 2 molecules of water, and that proportion (relative amounts) will always be true for that reaction.