Using standard-style PHP blocks for The Loop

Because the code was getting really ugly, I converted the typical <?php while():?> <?php endwhile ?> format that you typically see the loop in to the standard php block format while() { …. }

Things have begun to behave very strangely, and since I’m new to WordPress development I thought maybe there’s a reason why.

Here’s my code:

query_posts('cat='.$category->term_id.'&showposts=5');
while (have_posts()){
	the_post();
	echo '<li><a href="' . the_permalink() .'" rel="bookmark" title="' . the_title() . '">';
		echo the_title() . '</a>';
	echo '</li>';
}

What is happening is for the first 3 posts, the title and permalink are appearing OUTSIDE (before) the <a> tag. I have no idea how it’s doing that – there’s nothing obvious to me in my php that would cause this odd behaviour. Strangely, (even more strangely, I should say), the last 2 posts ARE appearing as expected within the <a href="" title=""> parts.

Any explanation would be appreciated to help me understand.

Regards,

Tom