As a reviewer, how do I decide between recommending rejection of a paper rather than a major revision?

Abstract

An associate editor of the journal has experienced an increase in the number of received reviews where the comments to either the authors or to the editor do not align with the reviewer's recommendation to accept, revise or reject. In particular, some recommendations for outright rejection of a submission have been accompanied by criticisms that clearly could have been solved by revision of the manuscript. The purpose of this letter is to provide some guidance to reviewers on the specific issue of deciding between a recommendation to revise versus reject.