asp.net mvc - Why won't a @Html.ActionLink render inside an li tag? -

my question simple. have unordered list <ul>... </ul> bunch of <li>...</li> tags. inside <li> tags have @html.actionlink(...) won't render. doing fundimentally wrong here? code:

<div id="menudiv">     <ul id="mymenu">         <li >@html.actionlink("dashboard", "index", new { sender = "agentscorecarereport"})</li>     </ul> </div> 

try this

<li >@html.actionlink("dashboard", "index",      new { sender = "agentscorecarereport"},null)</li>