What does a "major revision" mean? I recently received the reviews/comments for an article submitted few months back to a journal. All the reviewers overall appreciated the content and the usefulness, but also suggested corrections (varying from minor to major) : typos, better title and abstract, reorganizing the material, better exposition at certain places, adding more benchmarks; that need to be addressed before publications. All the reviewers recommended the paper for publication if the reviews were addressed satisfactorily.

The editor, looking at the reviews, mailed stating a major revision of the paper is needed before re-submitting the paper.

My question is, what does this mean, in terms of the chances that my article is accepted, when I re-submit it after making the corrections suggested by the reviewers?

In general, I would like to know what goes in the editor's mind when he suggests minor revision/ major revision etc. If an article needs major revision, will it be reviewed again? How do these translate into chances of the article being accepted?
In my field (chemistry), the practice is: for those journals that make a clear distinction between minor and major revision requests, “major revision” means that the paper will have to undergo further review after revision, usually by the same referees, while “minor revision” means that while changes should be made, no further reviewing is needed.

Not all journals make this distinction, however: for some, the need for further reviewing will be decided by the editor upon reading your response to the reviewers’ comments.



For example, here are screenshots of the web interface facing the reviewer of ACS and RSC journals when he has to fill in his review. You can see that the categories are different for different journals.

Example 1:



Example 2: