Integration by Parts

Introduction
On first glance, indefinite integrals such as

can appear
daunting. However, as with differentiation, such integrals can be evaluated by using an
appropriate set of integration rules and techniques.
One such method that we could use to tackle such an integral is integration by parts.
The formula for integration by parts can be derived from the Product Rule to illustrate its
relation to differentiation.
The Product Rule
The product rule states that if and are two differentiable functions, then

[]

By applying indefinite integrals to this formula we can derive the formula for integration
by parts. This becomes
[] [

We can then rearrange this to give

This then is the formula for integration by parts and is commonly seen in its more
compact form. We let and so that

Armed with this formula, an integral such as where is the natural
logarithm of the variable (see figure), can be broken down and thus solved relatively
easily.
We can let the function and so that

We can now evaluate the necessary components by differentiating and integrating and
respectively to obtain and :

Since we know how to differentiate , we can essentially use this rule to get around
tricky integrals that can conversely be differentiated easily. Plugging in these values we
get
[] (

)



Our initial integral

requires a little more effort to solve but

it can still be broken down and solved using integration by parts.
So let

Thus

) (

We can take the constants out of the integral to obtain

) (

Now we must apply integration by parts again to evaluate

. It is
important that we maintain the roles of and throughout the process thus, as before

Using the fact that

, we
can include this in our original equation:

) (

We can once again take the constants out of the integral and rearrange slightly to give

) (

) {

}

We can see that we have the integral we are trying to evaluate,

present
on both sides of the equation. This implies that we can now solve the integral
algebraically.

) (

This becomes
(

We can now rearrange this to get the integral alone on the left hand side.

) (

) (

) (

)(

)(

)
We can now