according to walter murch

According to Walter Murch, when it comes to film editing, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut or deciding where to cut. They are (in order of importance, most important first):

• Emotion — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?
• Story — Does the cut advance the story?Rhythm — Does the cut occur “at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and ‘right’” ?
• Eye-trace — Does the cut pay respect to “the location and movement of the audience’s focus of interest within the frame” ?
• Two-dimensional place of the screen — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
• Three-dimensional space of action — Is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the diegesis?

Murch assigned notional percentage values to each of the criteria. Emotion, with 51%, outweighed the combined value of all the other criteria.