Hi there!
Perhaps the best way to start a question like this is to see if you can picture the graph of the functions in your head (or draw them). This will give you a better idea of what's going on. If you can't, use this function plotter:
http://www.univie.ac.at/future.media/moe/fplotter/fplotter.html
Ok. So picture in your head the shells. We're rotating about the line
![](https://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\bg_white x=2)
, so clearly these shells are going to have a radius of
![](https://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\bg_white |x-2|)
.
In the region
![](https://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\bg_white 0<x<2)
, we know that
![](https://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\bg_white \frac{1}{x+1})
is going to be larger than
![](https://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\bg_white \frac{1}{x-5})
(because the second function is negative!).
Therefore, the height of these shells is
![](https://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\bg_white \frac{1}{x+1} - \frac{1}{x-5})
.
And that's it! The volume of the little shells going to be:
Hence the volume is just
Why
![](https://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\bg_white 2-x)
? Because in the region of integration,
![](https://latex.codecogs.com/png.latex?\bg_white |x-2|=2-x)
.
Hope this helps!
Rob