Why is sulphur written as S in chemical equations and not S8?

Answer 1

If you wrote S8, people would think there were 8 sulfur atoms in the molecule.

S is the symbol for the element sulfur, S8 is the symbol of an allotropic form.

Answer 2

Sulfur is written as S in chemical equations to represent the individual sulfur atoms, not the elemental form S8. Using S8 would imply that sulfur exists as a molecule in the reaction, which is not the case in most chemical reactions. Sulfur typically exists as S8 molecules in its elemental form, but in reactions, it is considered as individual atoms for simplicity.