Need some help with middle school algebra.

I really don't understand algebra that great. I can do it, but I feel I'm just using common sense.

4x + 7 = 27 just for an example.

I know that I need to get to 20 to at the 7. So I go 4*? = 20 .. and obviously its 5. so x = 5 ... is there an actual way to do this other then common sense? I feel i have no idea how to do harder problems because i dont exactly like working on paper.

The goal of these solving questions is to get the x by itself. In this case, you first subtract 7 from both sides, so there's no 7 on the left hand side.
4x + 7 - 7 = 27 - 7
4x + 0 = 20
4x = 20

You then divide both sides by 4, to get rid of the 4 on the left hand side:
x = 20/4 = 5

If you have something being added to one side, and you want to get rid of it from that side, you subtract that number from both sides. In this case, you wanted to get rid of the 7 on the left side, so you subtracted 7 from both sides to cancel it out (This works in the reverse to: Subtraction cancels out with addition)

With multiplication, you divide both sides by that number. In this case, to get rid of the 4 on the left side, you divide both sides with 4 to get x/1 on the left side (Also works in reverse: Division cancels out with multiplication)

This is how you do the algebra. It's very simple and when you get to high school like me they will get more difficult so you will have to use paper. Think of paper being our scratch board and you writing your ideas on them. It would be hard to remember your thinking if you didn't wrote your work on paper

That is basically what you are doing at this point. As you get further along though the problems do get much more complicated at which point it really does help to write everything out so that you can avoid errors and keep track of everything.

4x + 7 = 27
4x+ 7 - 7 = 27 - 7
4x = 20
4x/4 = 20/4
x = 5

Is that what you mean ? Haha.
Im in Geometry so I hope it is.