Algebra and Negative Exponent Clarification

There is something about the negative exponents that confuses me. You mentioned in one of the videos that negative^anything is negative and negative^even is positive, but I’ve seen equations where this wasn’t the case. An example is an algebraic equation where you put in -2 to test if the equation would result in a negative and it didn’t. You wrote it as 4 and there wasn’t any parenthesis.

The second clarification is related to the screenshot I attached to this email. It became 2a - a + 5. There was no parenthesis before (a - 5) so I’m confused as to why it became 2a - a + 5.

I don’t understand this point.

Obviously it can’t be “anything” per what you said immediately after.

If we look, he was trying to subtract a - 5 from 2a, which is actually 2a - (a - 5) = 2a - a + 5.